jgLD 4625 
1868 
Copy 1 



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INAUGURATION 



OF 



4MES MTOSH, D.D.,LLD, 



PRESIDENT OF 



THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY, 



PRINCETON. 



OCTOBER 2 7, 1368. 






V 



£w 



INAUGURATION' 



OF 



JAMES M c C0SH, D.D.,LL.D, 









o 



PKESIDENT OF 



THE COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY. 



PRINCETON. IU^< 



OCTOBER 27, 1868. 




NEW YORK: 
ROBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS, 
No. 530 BROADWAY. 
1868. 



PREFACE 



At a meeting of the Board of Trustees of the College 
of New Jersey, at Princeton, April 29th, 1868, the 
Eeverend James M c Cosh, D.D., LL.D., Professor of 
Logic and Metaphysics in Queen's College, Belfast, Ire- 
land, was unanimously chosen to the office of President of 
the College, made vacant by the resignation of the Eev- 
erend Dr. Maclean, and a committee was appointed to 
correspond with Dr. M c Cosh, and inform him of his elec- 
tion. • 

On his acceptance of the office, a committee was ap- 
pointed to make arrangements for the inauguration. 

The event, at the same time, called forth unusual marks 
of public favor on both sides of the Atlantic. In Scotland, 
as well as Ireland, distinguished assemblies were gathered 
in honor of the President-elect, to express to him their 
good wishes at parting. In our own country, the sister 
Colleges of Harvard, Brown, and Jefferson, conferred upon 
him their highest academic degrees ; and on his arrival 
at Princeton, October 20th, he was met at the station by 
the faculties and students of the College and Theological 
Seminary, welcomed with hearty cheers, and escorted to 
the President's house, from the porch of which he made 
a short address to the students, which was warmly 
applauded. 

On the day of the inauguration, October 27th, special 
trains from New York and Philadelphia brought to Prince- 
ton such a concourse of graduates and of learned and dis- 



VI PREFACE. 

tinguished men from different parts of the country, as has 
never before been known in the history of the College. 
The procession, which was tinder the direction of General 
Caldwell K. Hall, Class of 1857, as Grand Marshal, with 
Assistant Marshals from other classes, was formed in its 
several divisions, at Whig and Cliosophic Halls, the Li- 
brary, Geological Hall, and the Chapel, and at half past 
twelve o'clock moved towards the First Presbyterian 
Church in the following order : 

GRAFULLA'S BAND. 

GRAND MARSHAL. 

ORATOR OP THE UNDER-GRADUATES. 

UNDER-GRADUATES IN THE ORDER OF CLASSES. 

HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR AND THE CHANCELLOR OF 
THE STATE. 
EX-PRESIDENT AND PRESIDENT ELECT. 
OFFICIATING CLERGY AND ORATORS. 
THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES. 
THE FACULTY OF THE COLLEGE. 
THE DIRECTORS, TRUSTEES, AND FACULTY OF THE THEOLO- 
GICAL SEMINARY. 

PRESIDENTS AND PROFESSORS OF OTHER COLLEGES 
AND SEMINARIES. 

JUDGES OF THE UNITED STATES AND STATE COURTS. 

MEMBERS OF THE SENATE AND HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF 

THE UNITED STATES. 

DISTINGUISHED STRANGERS. 

ALUMNI AND LAUREATI OF THE COLLEGE. 

GRADUATES AND STUDENTS OF OTHER COLLEGES AND 

SEMINARIES. 

CITIZENS. 

Arrived at the church, the under-graduates opened in 
line, with heads uncovered, while the other divisions of the 



PREFACE. Vll 

procession passed through thern into the church. The 
Governor and Chancellor of the State, Ex-president and 
President-elect of the College, officiating clergy and ora- 
tors, and distinguished visitors took their seats upon the 
platform at the centre, with the Board of Trustees on the 
right and the Faculty on the left, while the isles and pews 
became densely crowded with students and alumni ; the 
galleries having been previously filled with ladies. 

The exercises then proceeded according to the order, 
and with the addresses hereafter presented, being inter- 
rupted only by the frequent applause of the audience, which 
was especially called forth by the appearance upon the 
platform of the venerable Judge Elbert Herring and Col. 
Joseph Warren Scott, who received their degrees from 
President Witherspoon, and by the allusion made to the 
long and valued services of the retiring President, Dr. 
Maclean. 

The various congratulatory addresses having been de- 
livered, and the oath of office administered, the President 
then received the College Charter and Keys at the hands 
of Ex-president Maclean, whose words in connection with 
the ceremony made the scene peculiarly impressive. 

After the Inaugural Address of the President, which 
was heard with unabated interest to the close, the whole 
assembly rose and greeted him with enthusiastic cheers. 

Li the evening the President held a reception at his 
house, while a promenade concert, provided by the stu- 
dents, was given in the adjoining campus, the College 
grounds and buildings being brilliantly illuminated. 



OEDEE OF EXEEOISES. 



His Excellency, Marcus L. Ward, Governor of New Jersey, and ex-officio 

President of the Board of Trustees, presiding. 
Music. 
Invocation. 

By The Rev. Jonathan F. Stearns, D.D., a member of the Board of 
Trustees. 

Music, 72d Psalm. 

Address of Welcome on behalf of the Trustees. 

By The Rev. Charles Hodge, D.D, LL.D., of the Class of 1815, Pro- 
fessor in the Princeton Theological Seminary, Senior Member of 
the Board of Trustees. 

Address of Welcome on behalf of the Under- Graduates. 

By Mr. J. Thomas Finley, of the Senior Class, representing the 
Cliosophic and American Whig Societies. 

Congratulatory Address to the Alumni and Friends of the 
College. 
By the Hon. William C. Alexander, of the Class of 1824. 

Address in Response on behalf of the Alumni. 

By The Honorable James Pollock, LL.D., of the Class of 1831, Ex- 
Governor of Pennsylvania. 

Tiie Oaths of Office administered io the President-elect. 

By The Honorable Abraham 0. Zabriskie, LL.D., of the Class of 
1825, Chancellor of New Jersey. The President-elect presented to 
the Chancellor by The Honorable Daniel Haines, of the Class of 
1820, and The Honorable Charles S. Olden, Ex-Governors of 
New Jersey and Members of the Board of Trustees. 

Music, " Te Deum Lauclamus." 

Delivery of the Charter and Keys of the College to the Presi- 
dent. 
By The Reverend John Maclean, D.D, LL.D., of the Class of 1816, 
the retiring President of the College. 

Inaugural Address. 

By The Reverend James McCosh, D.D., LL.D., President of the Col- 
lege. Subject : " Academic Teaching in Europe." 

Concluding Prayer. 

By The Reverend George W. Musgraye, D.D-, LLD., a member of 
the Board of Trustees. 

Music, Doxology, 117tli Psalm. 
Benediction. 

By The Right-Reverend Charles P. McIlvaine, D.D., D.C.L., of 
the Class of 181G, Bishop of Ohio. 



INTRODUCTORY, 

BY GOYEENOK M. L. WAED. 

His Excellency, Marcus L. Ward, Governor of 
New Jersey, and ex-officio President of the Board of 
Trustees, presided, and introduced the exercises by 
saying : " This institution of learning, so closely iden- 
tified with the reputation and honor of our State, is 
about to install as its President one whose learning, 
culture, and fame is as wide spread as the language 
we speak. 

" Gifted and able minds have, from the commence- 
ment, presided over these halls of learning, and none 
have been more successful than he, who, full of years 
and honors, this day resigns the trust to other hands. 
May he long live to enjoy the esteem of his many 
friends, and the retrospect of a life well spent. 

" From far and wide the Alumni and Friends of the 
College have gathered to honor the occasion, and to 
attest their interest in its material progress and its 
intellectual triumphs. 

" Never did its future seem so assured as now — with 
a faculty first in all departments of knowledge, it 
stands the peer, if not the superior, of the institutions 
of learning in the nation." 



ADDRESS OF WELCOME 

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES, 

BT 

THE KEVEKEND CHAELES HODGE, D.D., LL.D. . 

Reverend and Honored Sir, — The Trustees of the 
College of New Jersey tender you their cordial salu- 
tations. We regard your accession to the presidency 
of this institution as a most auspicious event. In no 
case within our knowledge has an academic election 
been received with such unmistakable evidence of 
public approbation. High expectations are enter- 
tained of your success in the career on which you are 
about to enter. Why this is ; why such hopes are 
cherished, it would not be proper for me, in your 
presence, to state; suffice it to say, that the high 
positions which you have successfully filled in your 
own country ; the world-wide reputation secured by 
the productions of your pen ; our personal knowledge 
of you as a Christian gentleman and faithful minister 
of Christ, are rational grounds for the hope that your 
presidency will constitute an epoch in the history of 
Nassau Hall. How these expectations are to be rea- 
lized, what measures are to be adopted to increase the 
efficiency and enhance the reputation of the College, 
we leave to you and your able coadjutors of the Fac- 



ADDRESS OP WELCOME. 11 

ulfcy to determine. We would in a single word state 
what it is we desire. It is that true religion here 
may be dominant ; that a pure gospel may be preached, 
and taught, and lived ; that the students should be 
made to feel that the eternal is infinitely more im- 
portant than the temporal, the heavenly than the 
earthly. We are deeply convinced that all forms of 
knowledge without religion become Satanic. The 
ground of this conviction is not the perceived causal 
relation between impiety and immorality ; nor solely 
the lessons of experience, but the revealed purpose of 
God, that those who refuse to acknowledge him, he 
will give up to reprobate mind. 

But religion and science are twin daughters of 
heaven. There is, or there should be, no conflict be- 
tween them. We earnestly desire, therefore, that all 
departments of knowledge embraced in the curriculum 
of such an institution, should be here so cultivated as 
to secure the highest measure of mental culture, the 
richest stores of acquired knowledge, and the forma- 
tion of the best habits for future study and future 
action. 

One sentence more. We earnestly desire that the 
governing principle in this institution should be love ; 
that the teachers may love the students and the stu- 
dents love their teachers ; that these young men may 
be led by the cords of affection into the ways of 
order, self-control and diligence. 

It is with the confident hope of seeing these ends 
accomplished we inscribe your honored name to the list 



12 ADDRESS OF WELCOME. 

of the Presidents of this College. Your predecessors 
in that office form one of the brightest galaxies in the 
ecclesiastical and literary firmament of this western 
hemisphere — beginning with Dickinson, the foremost 
man in our church, in his generation, and ending with 
Maclean, than whom no man living among us is 
regarded with deeper reverence or more sincere 
affection. 

We commend you to the grace of God, and the 
guidance of our great God and Saviour, Jesus Christ, 
for whom this College was founded, and to whom it 
inalienably belongs. 



ADDEESS OF WELCOME 

ON BEHALF OF THE UNDER-GEADUATES, 

BY MR. J. THOMAS F 1 1ST LET. 

OF THE SENIOR CLASS. 

Sol exoptatus illuxit; dies lsetissimus festissimusque 
agitur. Quod bonuni, felix faustumque sit, Nassovia 
venerabilis, colenda semper et culta, prsesidem unde- 
cimum aecipit. Neque nostra solum hujus diei even- 
tus interest, verum etiam ecclesiae, reipublicse, 
seculi. 

Curat oribus honoratis visum est nos quoque qui 
adhuc in gremio Almse Matris morantur, gratulationes 
nostras afFerre. Ut qui maxiine, te ex animo prsesidem 
nostrum salvere jubemus ! 

Te florem eximium cultus Europsei arbitrati sumus, 
te scientise ac religionis consensus interpretem maxi- 
mum, te fidei defensorem pnecipuum. 

Collegii nostri historia tibi haud omnino ignota est. 
Reipublic££ historise vinculis artissimis est intexta. 
Witherspoon illustrissimus, prseses sextus, advena 
acceptissimus idemque civis tuus, patriae adoptivse 
valde amans, publicis consiliis seculo natali nostro 
interfuit. Madison clarissimus, ejusdem setatis alum- 
nus, Reipublicoe prsefuit, aliisque muneribus publicis 



14 ADDRESS OF WELCOME. 

functus est. Ne te niorer, ecclesia quoque et theo- 
logia sacra prsesidibus alumnisque nostris non minus 
debent. Edwards, Davies, Green, ne -alios mortuos 
viventesve commemorem, famam suam nostramque 
late protulerunt. In horum munerum honorumque 
societatem te lseti accipimus. 

Collegii nostri decus prsecipuum fuit, quod artiuni 
liberaliuni studio religio omni tempore proefuerit. 
Hsec ratio disciplinaris tibi cordi semper fuit, erit 
semper. Omnem humanitatem commendans et do- 
cens, philosophiam veram et religionem prsscipue 
nobis exponas atque exemplo tuo" confirmes. " Mater 
omnium bonarum artium, sapientia," tibi maximam 
debet gratiam ; in sere tuo magis magisque sit. Nihil 
nobis juvenibus potius est quam ut opera talia tibi 
bene procedant. 

" Pater ipse colendi 
Hand facilem esse viain voluit." 

Utilitas, " justi prope mater et aequi," civibus nos- 
tris maximo pretio est. Hac via ardua, utilium saga- 
cissimus nos volentes in sapientiam veram sanctamque 
ducas ! 

Patria nostra nondum adulta, mens animusque ado- 
lescentes tibi in manus dantur. In bonum verumque 
nos faciles semper invenias ! 

Te ipso nobis ignoto, nomen tuum et opera tua 
haudquaquam ignota sunt. " Intuitiones " tuso nos 
juvenes instituerunfc. Vestigia tua ardentes insecuti 
sunt. Te cum Kantio, Millio ceterisque luctantem 
intentis oculis observarunt, et " ITabet, babet ! " ac- 



ADDRESS OF WELCOME. 15 

clamarunt ; " Conscientise vera philosophia est eon- 
formanda." Te vincente verum rectumque triumph- 
antur ; nos ergo lsetati sumus. 

Nobis adventu tuo nihil exoptatius est. Tua salus 
salus nostra est, fama tua nos quoque illustrat. La- 
bores tui nos omnes in omni liberalium artiiim studio 
promovebunt. 

^Estate ineunte certiores facti te hcec munera cura- 
turum clamore nostro totum aer implevhnus — alis 
igneis lsetitiam nos tram in coelum misimus. 

Tibi prsesidi nostro bonoratissimo omnia beneficia 
satis superque sint. Nobis te preside favor Dei 
abunde adsit ! 

" Appareat beata pleno copia cornu ! " 

Quum decessor tuus, Maclean, vir veneratus dilec- 
tusque semper, tibi muneris insignia dederit, tibi 
nobisque dignitatem ingrediaris in omnia secula 
illustrem. 

Vivat McCosh ! Yivat Nassovia ! 

Sperantes, fidentes, lsetantes te iterum iterumque 
salvere jubemus. 



CONGRATULATORY ADDRESS 

TO THE ALUMNI AND FRIENDS OF THE COLLEGE, 

BY THE 

HONOKABLE WILLIAM C. ALEXANDER LL.D. 

Brother Graduates and other Friends of the Col- 
lege of New Jersey, — It is only within a few days 
that I have been advised that the duty had been 
assigned me of tendering to the assembled graduates 
of the College, and such other friends as have hon- 
ored us with their presence, the warm and cordial 
congratulations of the College on its present condition 
and prospects, and on its good fortune in having at this 
juncture secured as its President one so capable, hon- 
ored, and distinguished as the reverend and learned 
gentleman who is this day to charge himself with the 
conduct of its affairs. I could have wished that this 
duty had fallen upon some one better qualified for its 
suitable and acceptable performance ; and now under 
the embarrassments which surround me, I am even 
at this moment tempted to shrink from the undertak- 
ing of a task which the flattering preference of the 
guardians of the institution has so kindly and unex- 
pectedly devolved upon me. I am constrained, how- 
ever, in all my weakness, to enter on that task, and 
hope to find my strength in the spirit of the cause 



CONGRATULATORY ADDRESS. 17 

which animates me. And here, in these circum- 
stances, I may not inappropriately use the words of a 
distinguished speaker in another land : " Here, where 
every object springs some sweet association, and the 
visions of fancy, mellowed as they are by time, rise 
painted on the eye of memorj' ; here, where the scenes 
of my childhood remind me how innocent I was, and 
the graves of my fathers admonish me how pure I 
should continue ; here, standing as I do among my 
fairest, fondest, earliest sympathies, oh, believe me, 
warm is the heart that feels, and willing is the tongue 
that speaks ; and yet I cannot by shaping it in my rude 
and inexpressive phrase, but shock the sensibilit}^ of 
a heart too full to be expressed, and far too eloquent 
for language." It is an interesting fact, and not with- 
out significance, that when the graduates of an ancient 
College assemble together as we do now, in circum- 
stances of peculiar and unwonted interest, the thoughts 
of each one immediately revert to the days of his own 
novitiate. The days of our youth, in every worldly 
sense our happiest days, come back upon us in such 
gatherings, and we would fain live over again the hours 
when we were as yet untainted by the earthy handling 
of business and of care ; and when our models of states- 
men and patriots were those stern, impracticable old 
Greeks and Romans, concerning whom we were ac- 
customed to read with our masters. Such a return 
of thought is both natural and pleasing, like the 
coming back of some war-worn soldier, after the vicis- 
situdes of years, to the green quietude of the lap of 



18 CONGRATULATORY ADDRESS. 

earth where he had spent his childhood among the 
hills. Therefore it is that on such occasions our 
thoughts run back to the days of academic discipline. 
They were our days of impression. Later traces 
have been superficial in comparison. Then the seal 
was set on melted wax, which presently grew hard 
as rock. What a tribute to the power of academic 
education ! Great men and great scholars have no 
doubt been made in privacy. But these must for- 
ever want the high and almost festive association of 
joint pursuit, the remembrance of enthusiasm caught 
from soul to soul in the common race for knowledge 
and reputation. 

There is no literary institution in America around 
which so many interesting and even romantic memo- 
ries and associations cluster, as the venerable College 
in whose behalf we are this day assembled ; and the 
contributions she has made to the cause of the coun- 
try, of education, and to the church, have never yet 
been duly recorded and properly estimated and ap- 
preciated. Brought into existence at a period an- 
terior to the Revolution, her history during the years 
of that memorable contest is inseparably interwoven 
and intertwined with the history of the country. At 
the breaking out of the Revolution her graduates 
numbered but four hundred and eighty-three, a large 
proportion of whom, with many of the students in 
attendance, passed from her walls to the ranks of the 
Revolutionary army ; and not one single instance can 
be discovered, after the closest scrutiny, of any one 



CONGRATULATORY ADDRESS. 19 

son of the College, during that eventful struggle, hav- 
ing proved recreant or apostate to the cause of liberty 
and the country, while their blood moistened every 
battle-field from Quebec to Savannah. If time per- 
mitted me (for I am limited in the number of minutes 
I can occupy) I could point to authentic records 
in history showing graduates of this College, who, 
filling the place of humble ministers of the gospel, 
when the storm of war rolled over the land, assem- 
bled together the male members of their congrega- 
tions, raised a standard of defence, reiterated the 
old Puritan maxim, that " resistance to tyrants was 
obedience to God," and placing themselves at the head 
of their people, were soon found charging at the head 
of cavalry regiments in front of Savannah, at Guilford 
Court House, Eutaw Springs, and the Cowpens. (Ap- 
plause and cheers.) It has been well said that this 
College literally gave up her staff and stay when 
her sixth President wended his way to the first 
Congress in Philadelphia, there to pledge life, for- 
tune, and sacred honor in behalf of the land of his 
adoption, and at the same time she gave the first fruits 
of her academic labor when a member of the first 
class ever graduated affixed his name to the same glo- 
rious instrument, the great Magna Charta of our sov- 
ereign and separate existence. (Applause and cheers.) 
From the establishment of the College in 1747, down 
to the period when America rose " to repel her 
wrongs and to claim her destinies," and the inhabi- 
tants of the thirteen colonies resolved upon the haz- 



20 CONGRATULATORY ADDRESS. 

ardous step of taking a last stand upon the adamantine 
rock of human rights, God, in his providence, was using 
this college as an instrument for the preparation of 
the men who were to perform no unimportant part in 
that struggle for empire. I have said that the asso- 
ciations which cluster around this College are memor- 
able. I will mention but one or two. There was no 
darker period in the Revolutionary struggle, none more 
pregnant with great events and the fate of the country, 
than that in which Washington made his famous and 
masterly retreat across The Jerseys, closely pursued by 
the enemy under the command of General Howe, from 
whom he escaped, by taking a position on the right bank 
of the Delaware. It was not until, having determined to 
put all upon the hazard of the die, he had recrossed the 
Delaware, encountered and defeated the Hessians at 
Trenton, marched upon and obtained his victory at 
Princeton, that from within the walls of the then in- 
fant College of New Jersey, he was first enabled to 
give assurance to the world that the cause of liberty 
was safe. (Applause.) And it is from this spot, where 
Washington triumphed and where Mercer fell, that 
this institution continues to diffuse her benign and 
hallowed influence over the land ; and it is upon this 
ground, rendered sacred by the blood of Mercer, that 
the sons of the College have assembled from all parts 
of the country to greet, and welcome, and honor a 
countryman of that hero and early martyr in the cause 
of freedom. 

In 1783, the Continental Congress, driven by the 



CONGRATULATORY ADDRESS. 21 

enemy from Philadelphia, adjourned to Princeton, and 
met in the library of the College. The commence- 
ment exercises of that year were honored by the 
presence of General Washington, who sat upon the 
stage, and was specially addressed by the valedictory 
orator of his class, himself a soldier of the Revolu- 
tion, one whose name has within a few years been 
added to the list of illustrious and departed Presi- 
dents of Nassau Hall, and whose mortal remains re- 
pose in yonder house of silence. 

There have been two remarkable eras in the history 
of the College. The first was one hundred years ago, 
in 1768. On the death of Dr. Finley, the president, 
the trustees, anxious to extend the fame and enlarge 
the influence and usefulness of the institution, cast 
their eyes across the Atlantic, and in the person of 
Dr. John Witherspoon, of Scotland, saw one who was 
eminently fitted to supply the wants of the institution. 
They brought him here to preside over the college. 
He added to European education and great theological 
and scholastic attainments, a profound knowledge of 
the science of government. He had a strong sym- 
pathy and affection for popular rights, which had been 
engendered, fostered and cultured in the wars and 
contests waged by him against the claims of privilege 
and patronage in his own Church. No man can care- 
fully examine the history of the College and the times 
without being impressed with the wonderful influence 
which that extraordinary man exercised on the cause, 
progress and success of human liberty and the des- 



22 CONGRATULATORY ADDRESS. 

tinies of the country. He seems to have imbued the 
mind of every pupil with an ardent love of liber ty, 
and to have moulded the minds and characters of the 
future men of the country, and prepared them for the 
proud and distinguished part which many of them 
were destined to perform in the great political drama 
then about to be enacted. It is a satisfaction for me 
to observe to-day in the audience several direct de- 
scendants of that president of the College ; and what is 
a more extraordinary fact, and more interesting, is, 
that we have upon this platform two venerable and 
distinguished men educated under the presidency of 
Dr. Witherspoon. — (Loud applause and cheers.) They 
graduated five years before our retiring president was 
born, and with the frosts of more than ninety winters 
pressing upon their brows, but with spirits as un- 
quenched, and with a love of their Alma Mater as un- 
quenchable, as when, seventy-three years ago they re- 
ceived their first degree at this College, they have 
this day come up to mingle their congratulations and 
acclamations with those of their younger brethren, on 
the accession to the presidency of a distinguished 
countryman of their illustrious preceptor. 

[At this point of Mr. Alexander's remarks the ap- 
plause was loud and almost impatient, and, anticipat- 
ing the desire of the audience, gentlemen on the stand 
assisted to raise Colonel J. Warren Scott, of New 
Brunswick, and Hon. Elbert Herring, of New York, 
the two alumni referred to. Their extreme old age 
and the emotion they exhibited caused the applause 



CONGRATULATORY ADDRESS. 23 

and cheers to be renewed, which were continued for 
nearly a minute. When it had subsided Mr. Alexan- 
der resumed :] 

The second era in the history of this college is 
the present. In 1868, one hundred years from the 
one I have mentioned, the presidency of the College 
again became vacant by the retiring of that President 
who for fifty years has devoted all the energies of 
mind and body, with a zeal unparalleled, to the in- 
terests of the institution and to the more enduring 
interests of the pupils committed to his charge. (Loud 
cheers and applause.) I have not time, nor is this 
the place for me to speak of that officer but I will 
never consent to pass by his name, however casually, 
in any public assembly, without tendering to him, the 
friend of my boyhood, the instructor of my youth, the 
faithful and unwavering friend of my riper years, the 
homage of my gratitude, warm esteem, profound re- 
spect, and most tender affection. — (Prolonged cheers). 

The presidency of the college, again becoming va- 
cant, the trustees, animated with the same feeling 
that governed their predecessors one hundred years 
ago, desirous to extend the fame and enlarge the in- 
fluence of the College, again cast their eyes across the 
same Atlantic to summon to the presidency of the Col- 
lege one, I was going to say of European reputation, 
but I will say a reputation not confined to countries 
where the English language is spoken, but extended 
as far as mental science is known. Indeed his repu- 
tation is co-extensive with the scientific world. He 



24 CONGRATULATORY ADDRESS. 

Las obeyed that summons, and has come among us, 
and by trustees, faculty, and students, and citizens — 
the whole population — he has been received with a 
unanimity and intensity of welcome — with a wild en- 
thusiasm — which it has never before been my lot to wit- 
ness. And, surely, with regard to that call, we may 
believe in this case, that the voice of the people will 
prove to be the voice of God. (Applause and cheers.) 
Brother graduates, while we sons of the College 
are proud of our academic lineage, and consider that 
the position of president of the College is inferior 
in point of honor and responsibility to none other in 
the land, yet remember that in accepting the call, and 
in obeying your summons, your new president has 
severed ties of no ordinary character — ties which 
bound him to the land of his nativity, to his kindred, 
to the scenes of his childhood, youth, education, and 
subsequent usefulness, to the graves of his fathers, 
and to scenes endeared by a crowd of gentle and at- 
tractive associations. He has come a stranger to form 
new ties and new acquaintances and friendships. 
What claim has he not to the sympathy, countenance, 
support, co-operation, and prayers of every son of this 
College ? Remember that it was only when Aaron and 
Hur held up the sinking hands of the greatest ruler 
and lawgiver the world ever saw, that the armies of 
Israel prevailed against the hosts of Amalek. Let 
your prayers then be that the God of our fathers — that 
covenant God who for more than a century has bless- 
ed this institution, may still continue to guide^ and 



CONGRATULATORY ADDRESS. 25 

protect, and bless, and send down increased blessings 
upon her incoming president. (Applause.) 

I have strange visions of the future career and gran- 
deur of this College — strange feelings, emotions, and 
anticipations, as looking down through the long avenue 
of time, I in imagination see the dawn of a more bril- 
liant clay, and feel and believe that the light which 
even now illumines the path before us will prove to 
be the precursor of a brighter glory. These feelings, 
as I stand before you, I have been endeavoring to 
chastise — to suppress and drive back the emotions and 
anticipations which have poured in upon me like 
a flood, and almost incapacitated me for the perform- 
ance of the duty which I have, perhaps unwisely and 
weakly, undertaken. That duty is now performed ; 
and it only remains for me to say, in regard to this 
college under this new administration, may her former 
glory be equalled and excelled ! May the zeal of her 
guardians and the fidelity of her instructors know no 
abatement ; the affection, devotion and loyalty of her 
sons suffer no diminution ; and amid the numberless 
literary institutions now scattered throughout the 
length and breadth of this great confederacy, may no 
classic steeple point more proudly to the skies than 
the much loved spire of our own Nassau Hall ! 



ADDRESS 

ON BEHALF OF THE ALUMNI, 

BY THE HON. JAMES POLLOCK, LL.D. 

Gentlemen alumni and friends of the College of 
New Jersey. — In the midst of the cares of professional 
life, literature and leisure are almost forgotten terms — 
memories of the past, not present realizations. There- 
fore it is that the duty of this hour becomes almost 
oppressive. But the inspiration of the occasion re- 
lieves the oppression, and bids the lips utter what the 
heart feels. 

I have been requested to respond in the name of 
the alumni and friends of the College to the address of 
congratulation to which we have listened with so much 
pleasure. The duty assigned is at once personal and 
representative : personal, in the expression of my 
feelings and sentiments on this inauguration day; re- 
presentative, in declaring the continued friendship and 
devotion of the alumni to their Alma Mater, and 
pledging, in their name, and may I not add by their 
authority ? their cordial, active, and earnest co-opera- 
tion in maintaining the past renown and speeding the 
coming day of her greater efficiency and glory. Her 
honor is their honor, and we rejoice with her in hailing 
the advent of one whose name is the pledge of pro- 



ADDRESS ON BEHALF OF THE ALUMNI. 27 

gress and reform — whose fame is the synonym of in- 
tellectual triumph, and who, filled with the enthusiasm 
of humanity, and the love of God, is prepared to meet 
the demands of the age and act in harmony with the 
mighty movements of the present. 

Therefore, honored sir, in the name of the alumni 
of this College, we bid you welcome to the classic 
shades of Princeton ; to the high office to which you 
have been called; to our country, our hearts, and 
homes. In the name of a common ancestry, language, 
and literature ; of kindred and hallowed memories ; of 
truth triumphant over error, terror and death ; of an 
open Bible, a common Christianity, a free church, free 
schools, free thought, and free speech, we welcome 
you. You come at an auspicious time in our national 
history. The rush and roll of war have ceased in our 
land. The " confused noise of the battle of the war- 
rior " is no longer heard, and " the garments rolled in 
blood " are no longer seen. Our nation, rising with 
renewed strength from her late struggle, and wiping 
the drops of her bloody baptism from her brow, stands 
before the world redeemed from the stain of human 
slavery. Liberty and peace, in happy union, are 
gathering in their trophies, and pointing with gratitude 
and pride to a more glorious future. 

The future of America ! What shall it be ? You are 
now with us and of us, to mould and form that future. 
You come from the land of the Bible and the Covenant, 
the land of the martyr and the hero, and shall we fear 
to entrust to your care and guidance the youth of 



28 ADDRESS ON BEHALF OF THE ALUMNI. 

America, those who are our life, our hope, our future ? 
Oh, no ! The Bible of the Mayflower was Scotland's 
Bible, and it is the Bible of America — the bulwark of 
her liberties — the power and strength of her national- 
ity. Your Bible is our Bible, and your God our God 
— therefore we will not fear. How necessary this 
when we remember that our Government is the em- 
bodiment of the power of a free people in the simple 
forms of our social and political order — that American 
nationality is the correlative of American manhood — ■ 
its development and type ; that sovereignity is with 
the citizen, and the supreme and ultimate power of 
the State is in the ballot-box, vitalized and energized 
by free, intelligent, and impartial suffrage. 

How important that our literary institutions should 
be controlled by sanctified intellect — that the church 
and the school-house, twin sisters of civilization and 
religion, should be seen dotting our valleys and crown- 
ing our hills, that the "common school-house," the 
centre and power of our educational system, "the 
people's colleges," should be found everywhere in our 
land, with doors wide open, inviting all to enter upon 
whom God has enstamped the sign and signet of man- 
hood ! 

In the Eepublic of Letters there is no dwarfing 
selfishness, no partisanship, no sectionalism, no sec- 
tarianism. All is cosmopolitan, liberal, universal. In 
other years Scotland recognized this truth, and gave 
Witherspoon to America. 

Again America has asked, and McCosh is ours. In 



ADDKESS ON BEHALF OF THE ALUMNI. 29 

asking, we honored Scotland ; and in giving, Scotland 
honored herself and America. She gave us the " type " 
of her own true manhood, the representative of her 
intellectual power and advancing civilization. We, 
with the blood of nations in our veins ; as a nation, 
the epitome of the world's nationalities, by the magic 
of our free institutions will give McCosh and freedom 
to the world. 

In the land from which you come nobility is here- 
ditary — the recognized law of social, civil, and politi- 
cal life. Birth and blood make and mark the man, 
affix the title, and determine his position in society. 
Here nobility finds its title and illustration in virtuous 
action, in grand achievement, in intellectual power 
and moral worth. Here we recognize the nobility of 
honored and honorable succession ; and we recognize 
you, sir, as the honored successor of a band of historic 
and immortal men, noblemen, upon whose brow God 
himself affixed the seal of true nobility, of manhood 
in its full development and impressive grandeur — a 
succession more honorable and more enduring in its 
fame than any recorded in the volumes of heraldry or 
created by royal decree. Need I name your illustrious 
predecessors in the high office to which you are called : 
Dickinson, Burr, Edwards, Davies, Finley, "Wither- 
spoon, Smith, and others, now among the honored 
dead, or he who is with us now, the true-hearted, the 
generous and sympathetic friend, the scholar and the 
man, President McLean, who to-day so gracefully lays 
aside the robes of office, and retires with the " God 



30 ADDRESS ON BEHALF OF THE ALUMNI. 

bless him." of all the alumni and friends of the College. 
These all were men of giant intellect, of positive faith, 
of lofty patriotism, undying energy and devoted ser- 
vice to country, humanity, and God. The alumni, 
now associating the past with the present, and recog- 
nizing in our new president a teacher and scholar 
worthy of such honored association, accept the congrat- 
ulations offered, and seal them with the pledge of 
renewed devotion to their Alma Mater — her interest, 
her honor, and renown. 

It is also a matter of congratulation, that whilst the 
president elect comes to us in all the freshness of 
vigorous manhood ; in the fullness and strength of a cul- 
tivated and matured intellect, he has brought with him 
a heart warm and true to all the generous sympathies 
of humanity ; that can hold companionship with intel- 
lect ; that can soften the stern dignity of official posi- 
tion, and blend in harmony the gentle and severe ; 
unite without compromise, the president of the College 
with the guardian, companion, and friend of the stu- 
dents ; a heart that can meet the heart of the young, 
feel its responsive throbs, and then, with the magic 
touch of hand to hand, true as the heart, cause him to 
feel his manhood, and love the one that rules by love ; 
a power greater than official authority ; the secret and 
centre of true administrative ability. The recognition 
of a student, by friendly greeting from president and 
professor, the honest shake of his hand, with a heart 
in it, is a power in the government of a College greater 
than bolts or bars, bye-laws or tutors, reprimand or 



ADDRESS ON BEHALF OF THE ALUMNI. 31 

expulsions. This heart power will govern our Alma 
Mater. 

We are standing to-day in the midst of thronging 
and touching memories. The past — solemn in its 
silence, impressive in its history — attends us here. 
The present — with its living, rushing energies, its 
" audacious activities " — is ours, and bids us onward. 
The future — rich in events that await the develop- 
ment of coming years — grand in its relations to the 
present and the past, takes up the word " onward,'' 
and points significantly from the known to the un- 
known, to be revealed in mightier achievement than 
the past can boast. 

Mind moves, as does the world. We live not in an 
ideal age, but in an age of ideas — of grand progres- 
sive thought, developing the practical and the real, 
the spiritual and the free. Thus while science and 
art, with wondrous energy, despite ocean depths, tie 
Avith the electric wire continents together; science, 
literature, and Christianity, with mightier power, binds 
heart to heart, and nation to nation, and while thrones 
are trembling and sceptres falling from the hands of 
profligate rulers, speed the day when earth's empires, 
united under the banner of the Cross, shall acknowl- 
edge the brotherhood of man, and God, the Father of 
all, as the "King of kings, and Lord of lords." 
Again, in the name of the alumni, we accept the con- 
gratulations tendered, renew our pledge, and pass 
over to history the doings of this hour. 



DELIVERY OF CHARTER AND KEYS. 

After the oaths of office had been administered by 
the Hon. Abraham 0. Zabriskie, Chancellor of the 
State of New Jersey, the Reverend John Maclean, 
D.D., LL.D., the retiring President, delivered to the 
President the Charter, Laws, and Keys of the Col- 
lege, with the following remarks : 

Mr. President, — In the name of the Trustees of the 
College of New Jersey, and by their authority, I de- 
liver to you the Keys of this institution, the original 
Charter, and also copies of the Charter as amended, 
and of the Laws. The obvious design of this cere- 
mony is to declare publicly, by a significant act, as 
well as in words, that you are fully invested with all 
the powers, privileges, and prerogatives which per- 
tain to the President of the College ; and that in the 
discharge of your official duties, you are to take the 
Charter and the Laws of the College for your author- 
ity and guide. 

While it is the duty of the President to see that 
the students are properly instructed in the several 
departments of knowledge embraced in the prescribed 
course, and that the rules of the College are duly 
regarded by all concerned, it is more especially in- 



DELIVERY OF THE CHARTER AND KEYS. 33 

cmnbent upon him to have the oversight of the reli- 
gious instruction, to guard the morals of the students 
and their faith in Christ. For these the laws make 
him personally responsible ; and in so doing, they ac- 
cord fully with the aim of the pious and excellent 
men who laid the foundation of the College, and 
sought thereby to promote the cause of our blessed 
Redeemer, and the welfare of our race, by the erec- 
tion of an institution for the advancement of true re- 
ligion and sound learning. 

In the instruction and government of the College, 
you will have able and learned colleagues, upon whose 
hearty co-operation you may confidently rely, and 
who will gladly aid you in securing for the youth com- 
mitted to your care a thorough, liberal, and Christian 
education. 

It is our earnest and fervent prayer that, in dis- 
charging the duties of your great and important trust, 
you may ever have the guidance and aid of the Holy 
Spirit, and that your administration of the affairs of 
the College may be marked with signal ability and 
success. At such success, no one will rejoice more 
than your immediate predecessor in office, who bids 
you welcome to this scene of your future and of his 
past labors. 



INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 

ACADEMIC TEACHING II EUROPE. 



How does it come that, with so many superior men 
in America, I have been invited to become President 
of Princeton, is a question which I have often been 
putting to myself these last few months, without be- 
ing able to find a satisfactory answer. So I think it 
best to "give it up," and turn to inquiries which 
have no personal bearing. 

But before doing so, I feel bound to say that the 
very fact of your calling me to this high office is a 
proof thai you have no jealousy of the old country. 
It is one of the motives impelling me to tear myself 
from the land which I so much loved, and to come to 
this country, which I will not love the less because 
I loved and do still love the one I have left, that I 
may labor to bring the two nations on which the fu- 
ture welfare and progress of the world do so much 
depend, into warmer friendship, and closer fellowship. 
Are we not one in race, a somewhat mixed race, the 
main element in both being the Anglo-Saxon with its 
love of personal liberty and its perseverance; the 
same in language, in literature, in religion, in the love 
of education and of freedom ? Why, with such bonds 
uniting them, should not the hearts of the two great 



36 ACADEMIC TEACHING IN EUKOPE. 

communities beat in unison, and their hands combine 
in common efforts for the Christianization, the en- 
lightenment and civilization of mankind. I do not 
expect to be able to further this end by politics (in 
which I do not mean to appear as a partisan); but 
surely all here may help it by the binding influence 
of literature, science and philosophy, which are citizens 
not of one country but of the world ; and above all by 
the attractive power of religion, which is a citizen of 
heaven come down to spread peace among men. 

The question for me to answer is, what can I do for 
you now that I am among you? The reply to this 
question in all its width must be found in what I do the 
remainder of my life. But there is a narrower and 
more immediate inquiry, what can I do this day in 
response to the generous reception you have given 
me ? All that I can offer is to give some information 
derived from the experience through which I have 
passed. 

It so happens that I have a considerable acquaint- 
ance with the universities of the old world. I have 
attended two of the Scottish Universities, and I be- 
lieve I am a graduate of three of them. I have 
visited Oxford and Cambridge, and lived within their 
walls with some of their most distinguished men. In 
Ireland I was officially connected with the latest estab- 
lished university in the Three Kingdoms, the Queen's 
University; and I had incidentally means of being 
acquainted with Dublin University. I have visited 
some half dozen colleges in Germany and several in 



ACADEMIC TEACHING IN EUROPE. 37 

Switzerland and Holland. I feel therefore that I 
ought to know something of academic teaching in 
Europe. And then it also happens that the question 
of what academic education ought to be, is being 
keenly discussed in Germany and in England, Scot- 
land and Ireland by some of the most thoughtful men 
in those countries, such as Doellinger, Pattison, Ma- 
thew Arnold, Seeley, Farrar, Lowe, Grant Duff, J. S. 
Mill, Tyndall, H. Spencer, Huxley, Lorimer, Cairnes, 
and many others. The younger moving spirits in 
the old colleges are alive to the evils which have be- 
come encrusted round the venerable structures to 
which they are attached, and are bent on having 
them removed. The more enlightened teachers in 
Oxford and Cambridge are becoming ashamed of the 
exclusive study of Latin and Greek, or Mathematics, 
very specially of their exaction of verse-making — as 
Milton expressed it long ago : " Themes and verses 
wrung from poor striplings like blood out of the nose, 
or the plucking of untimely fruit." In Scotland they 
have become fully aware of the futility of imparting 
erudition by mere lectures, and have introduced more 
of the tutorial and examination system.* Even in 

* But there is a risk that certain dispensers of patronage, by pre- 
ferring candidates trained at the English Universities, most of whom 
have abandoned Presbyterianism, bring the Colleges into collision 
with the religious convictions of the people. There is another dan- 
ger: by aping Oxford and Cambridge, without equalling them in 
their own line ; and by glorying in the fact, that their best pupils 
leave them to get prizes at the English Universities, they may lose 
that independence of thought and scientific researeh for which the 
Scottish Colleges have been famous. There are Englishmen who see 



38 ACADEMIC TEACHING IN EUROPE. 

Germany some are becoming sick of their drill sys- 
tem and dry routine, and are longing for an infusion 
of the more fresh and manly training of Great Britain. 
This discontent with the present is stirring up a strong 
desire to improve for the future : and out of the dis- 
cussions will arise, I am satisfied, great improvements 
in the Universities of the old world. I am in this 
lecture to carry you into the very heart of these dis- 
cussions. 

It is to be understood that in doing this I have 
no design, avowed or secret, to revolutionize your 
American colleges or to reconstruct them after a 
European model. I take up this subject because 
it is one competent to me, and because it enables me 
to unfold what I believe to be the proper nature of 
collegiate instruction, without committing myself pre- 
maturely to American questions, in regard to which 
I am seeking information. It fortunately so happens 
that I have also visited upward of a dozen colleges 
and theological seminaries in the United States ; and 
I have seen enough of them to become convinced that 
they are not rashly to be meddled with. They are 
the spontaneous outgrowth of your position and your 

this. Professor Seeley says : " If we take the single department of 
philosophy, is it not evident that if the English system had been fol- 
lowed in the Scottish Universities, there would have been no Scotch 
school of philosophy." Mr. Johnson : " It is to Edinburgh men more 
than to any public school or Oxford or Cambridge men (unless Oxford 
and Westminster take credit for Bentham), that we owe the enlight- 
ened legislators and the righteous government of the last forty years." 
"If we ever had an educator, it was Dugald Stewart." — See Essays on 
Liberal Education, pp. 117, 353. 



ACADEMIC TEACHING IN EUROPE. 39 

intelligence ; they are associated with your history 
and have become adjusted to your wants ; and what- 
ever improvements they admit of must be built on 
the old foundation. Still the circumstance that you 
have called me from a foreign country is a proof that 
you are anxious to receive supposed good from any 
and from every quarter. A composite nation like 
yours, drawing its population from all regions, will be 
ready to take knowledge from all lands. In regard 
to elementary schools Europe has more need to look 
to you than you have to look to Europe : but pos- 
sibly in regard to universities America may advan- 
tageously look to the old colleges of Europe, even 
as these are anxiously looking to each other. This 
is one of the European wars in which I would have 
the United States to take their part. I certainly do 
not ask you to adopt any European method be- 
cause it is European, or on any other ground than 
that it can stand a sifting examination on its own 
merits : and of this I am sure that whatever matter 
your country receives from others, it will put upon 
it, as it has done upon the divers people who have 
come within its wide territories, a stamp and a char- 
acter of its own. 



40 ACADEMIC TEACHING IN EUROPE. 



I. WHAT IS THE IDEA OR FINAL CAUSE OF UNIVERSITY 
TEACHING ? 

On this point, which settles every other, there is 
no agreement theoretically or practically. A large 
and growing number, we may call them the realists, 
evidently think that the reXog, or end of a university, 
is to impart knowledge, some would say mere physi- 
cal knowledge; to fit students for the professions, 
or prepare them for the business of life. Others, 
whom we may call the idealists, embracing the more 
elevated minds, deem this a low and unworthy aim 
for the highest educational institutions of a country 
to set before them; and maintain that it should be 
the ambition of a university to improve the faculties 
of the mind, to refine the taste, and to elevate the 
country by raising up an educated body of men, who 
draw up all who are under their influence to a higher 
level, where they will breathe a purer atmosphere. 
Let us endeavor to cut a clear path through the 
thicket of this controversy. 

(1.) I do hold it to be the highest end of a univer- 
sity to educate ; that is, draw out and improve the 
faculties which God has given. Our Creator, no 
doubt, means all things in our world to be perfect in 
the end : but he has not made them perfect ; he has 
left room for growth and progress ; and it is a task 
laid on his intelligent creatures to be fellow-workers 
with him in finishing that work which he has left 
incomplete, merely that they may have honorable em- 



ACADEMIC TEACHING IN EUROPE. 41 

ployment in completing it. Education ought to be a 
gymnastic to all our powers, not overlooking those 
of the body ; that every muscle may be braced to its 
manly use ; that our students may be able to assume 
the natural posture, and make proper use of their 
arms and limbs, which so many of our best scholars 
feel, in their public appearances, to be inconvenient 
appendages. It should seek specially to stimulate, 
and strengthen by exercising, the intellectual powers : 
such as the generalizing or classifying, by which we 
arrange the things that present themselves into 
groups, ordinate and co-ordinate ; and the abstracting, 
analyzing capacities by which we reduce the com- 
plexities that meet us to a few comprehensible and 
manageable elements ; and the reasoning faculty by 
which we rise from the known and the present to the 
unknown and remote. The studies of a university 
should be organized towards this end, and all its ap- 
paratus of languages, sciences, physical and mental, 
and mathematical exercises, should be means to 
accomplish it. But then man has other endowments 
than the understanding, in the narrow sense of the 
term : he has a fancy capable of presenting brighter 
pictures than any reality ; an imagination which will 
not be confined within the limits of time and this 
world ; and a taste and sensibility which can appre- 
ciate beauty and sublimity in earth and sky ; and these 
ought to be called forth and cultivated in our aca- 
demic groves, by youth being made to know, and led 
to relish, our finest literature, ancient and modern, in 



42 ACADEMIC TEACHING IN EUROPE. 

prose and poetry, — I add, though in doing so, I may 
seem to he placing the ideal too high, by having in 
museums and art galleries the means of displaying 
the esthetic qualities of the creature, inanimate and 
animate, in art and nature. It is a favorite idea 
of Sir Charles Bell's, that the ancient Greeks reached 
such incomparable excellence in their statuary by 
aiming to produce figures as far removed from the 
brute form as possible : certainly it should be the aim 
of academic teaching to give a form to the mind high 
above the brute shape — high above the sordid and 
earthly manifestations of humanity. And surely our 
universities, which are to fashion the ruling minds of 
the country, are never to forget that man has high 
emotional susceptibilities which should be evoked by 
narratives, by eloquence, by incidents presented in 
history, in literature, and in art; and that, as the 
crown upon his brow placed there by his Maker, he 
has a moral and spiritual nature, which is to be de- 
veloped and purified by the contemplation of a holy 
law, and of a holy God embodying that law, and of 
a God incarnate and with creature sympathies, in- 
ducing us to draw nigh when otherwise we should be 
driven back by a consciousness of guilt on the one 
hand, and a view of the dazzling purity of the Foun- 
tain of Light on the other. 

Now, at this entrance examination, every study 
seeking admission into the curriculum of a college 
should be made to appear. In order to matriculation, 



ACADEMIC TEACHING IN EUROPE. 43 

it must show that it is fitted to refine and purify 
the noble faculties which God has given us. 

(2.) Under this, it should be the aim of a uni- 
versity to impart knowledge. I say under this, in 
order to impose the proper limit on the principle 
held by so many in the present day, that a college 
should give itself mainly, not to languages, and least 
of all dead languages ; not to metaphysical pursuits, 
which move in circles without advancing ; not to such 
old studies which are leading a sort of doomed exist- 
ence, like that of flies in autumn ; but to real knowl- 
edge, to practical knowledge, by which it turns out 
that they mean the various branches of physics, or 
quite as likely one or two favorite departments of 
natural science. Now I hold that even for practical 
utility, for mere happiness' sake, there may be a 
higher end than the attainment of knowledge, and 
that is the improving of those heaven-bestowed pow- 
ers which acquire knowledge, but acquire many other 
things of value ; I maintain that there may be other 
knowledge valuable as well as scientific information ; 
and I utterly deny that the acquisition of knowledge, 
certainly not of the material world, is the only means 
of training the nobler parts of humanity. The child 
prefers nursery rhymes and Robinson Crusoe to 
science made easy. Some of the greatest minds that 
shine as stars above our world knew little of physical 
science, such as Homer, and Socrates, and Plato, and 
Dante, and Shakespeare, and Milton, and Edwards, 
and Burke, and Wordsworth, and Schiller, who yet 



44 ACADEMIC TEACHING IN EUROPE. 

found in our world sources of high enjoyment and a 
means of ascending to their elevated spheres. I hold 
that there are other means besides the natural 
sciences of educating even the faculties of comparison 
and causality : that these may be called into exercise 
quite as effectively by the thoughts and sentiments 
embodied in a cultivated language ; by the study of 
the noblest part of God's workmanship in this lower 
world, the human mind, whether of its laws, as un- 
folded by mental science, or in the concrete exhibition 
of human nature, in its fears and hopes, its joys and 
sorrows, its struggles and its triumphs, in countries 
remote and near, in ages past and present, as detailed 
in travel, in history, and biography, or by representa- 
tions in poetry, in eloquence, in the fine arts, and 
most truthfully of all, in the inspired records. 

But then it should be frankly acknowledged and 
publicly proclaimed, that science, that is, observa- 
tional science, that the knowledge of nature, that is, 
of the works of God, is an important means of culti- 
vating those powers with which the God of nature 
has endowed us ; for they show us how to observe 
and how to arrange the objects with which we are 
surrounded, and as we do so, we come to see proper- 
ties and beauties before overlooked, and become more 
interested in them, and acquire a friendship for them. 
They show us how to gather the law from the scat- 
tered particulars that present themselves; how, by 
the necessary "rejections and exclusions," as Bacon 
says, to draw out the essential from the indifferent 5 



ACADEMIC TEACHING IN EUROPE. 45 

how to reach the truth and consistency among dis- 
cordant and apparently contradictory appearances; 
when to lay aside prepossessions and anticipations ; 
and how to make an " inquisition " of nature, to catch 
her when Proteus-like she is anxious to escape, and 
make her reveal her secrets. These are not only the 
true means of acquiring knowledge, but the fittest for 
exercising and giving energy to the faculties, and 
of acquiring intellectual habits of patience and pene- 
tration, useful in every kind of inquiry, speculative 
and practical. The old schoolmaster adage, that it is 
of no consequence what the faculties be employed 
about, provided they are employed, and thereby dis- 
ciplined, is a false one. Some have gone so far as to 
say, that no matter whether the knowledge thus ac- 
quired, say the writing of Latin verses, be of any use 
in the future life or no ; no matter how dull and crab- 
bed the work, how harsh the grindstone on which the 
mind is ground, provided thereby the faculties are 
sharpened for use. These persons do not see that the 
mental powers are not healthily exercised, and are not 
likely to be invigorated and refreshed when engaged 
in unprofitable work, as it were, mounting the steps 
of a treadmill, or doing the whole in a close medieval 
atmosphere, which, in fact wastes the strength, and 
gives a sallow complexion to the countenance. Do 
you not see the terrible risk of wearying and disgust- 
ing the mind, when it is making its first and most 
hopeful efforts, and giving it ever after, by the laws 
of mental association, a distaste for severe studies ? 



46 ACADEMIC TEACHING IN EUROPE. 

True, the exercise of the mincl, like that of the body, 
is its own reward ; but both are most apt to be under- 
taken when there is some otherwise pleasant or profit- 
able object in view, and most likely to be repeated 
when we have a sense of gratitude for the good we 
have received. If, after we have walked so hard, we 
see and find nothing of value, if we are required to 
labor for that which profiteth not, to fight as one that 
beateth the air, the issue is not likely to be refresh- 
ing, and life, and hope, but ennui, and unconquerable 
aversion to exertion. I hold that every study should, 
as far as possible, leave not a distaste, but a relish on 
the palate of the young, so that they may be inclined 
to return to it.* However it may have been in the 
dark, or rather, as I would call them, the twilight 
ages, when only a few departments of real knowledge 
could be discerned, and men had to make the best of 
the available material, it is not imperative now to re- 
sort to profitless studies when such rich and fertile 
fields are evidently lying all around us. Our Lord's 
test applied to religion admits of an application to 
study, namely, that it brings forth fruits. Faith may 
often be more valuable than works, but it is by works 



* Plato says, Hep. VII. 15, that instruction should be so given that 
it may be learned without compulsion. Tl 6$ ; "On, yv tfb/u, ovdev 
fiddy/ja fierd 6ov?^eiag rbv kAevdepov XVV fJO.vduveLV. ol fiev yuq tqv oufjarog 
tvovol /3ca Ttovov/xevoc xetpov ovdev to cfi/ua unepyd&VTat, ijjvx?) de fiiatov ovdev 
ifj.fj.ovov fiddrffia. 'AhyB-jj, ftyy. My tolvvv (3ta, eIttov, cj uqlottj, rovg naldag 
h rolg fiady/uaoiv ulld irai^ovTag TQtye. Some of his statements go too 
far. Quinctilian's caution is judicious: Nam id in primis cavere 
oportebit, ne studia qui amare nondum potest oderit, et amaritudinem 
pemel perceptam etiam ultra rudes annos reformidat 



ACADEMIC TEACHING IX EUROPE. 47 

it is to be tried to see if it is genuine, and by works 
faith is made perfect : so it is by profitable work that 
the faculties are called forth and elevated. Bacon 
adopted our Lord's distinction, and applied it to sci- 
ence ; not holding (as those who do not understand 
religion misunderstand him) that practical fruits are 
better than knowledge, but that knowledge cannot 
be genuine when it does not yield such fruits. So, 
using the same distinction, I hold that in study, while 
the true end is the elevation of the faculties, they 
never will be improved by what is in itself useless, or 
found to be profitless in the future life. And I am 
prepared to show that the sciences, physical and 
moral, not only supply nutriment and strength to the 
intellect, they give life to it. It has been proved by 
recent science, that the food we eat, got from the 
animal and the plant, not only gives nourishment to 
the frame, but by the force derived from that great 
source of force, the sun, furnishes the heat which 
keeps the body warm and vital ; so knowledge, which 
is power derived from the Divine source of all power, 
not only communicates strength to the mind, but im- 
parts fire to kindle a noble enthusiasm, and motive to 
set us forth in our pursuits, when we know that we 
shall in no wise lose our reward. Science discloses 
not only a utility, but a beauty in objects which, to 
the vulgar, appear dull and debasing ; shows that 
there is a loveliness in every work that God has 
made, even in the skeleton of rattling bones, from 
which the uninitiated shrink; even in the insect 



48 ACADEMIC TEACHING IN EUROPE. 

crawling in the clay from which they flee — a beauty 
fitted to call forth admiration and love, and in the 
hearts of the pious adoration and praise. 

(3.) It may be the aim of a University to give pro- 
fessional instruction. This, indeed, should always be 
esteemed a lower end, not indeed an unworthy, but 
still an inferior end, that is, subordinate to the im- 
provement of the mind ; and if we make it supreme, 
we are turning things upside down, and putting up- 
permost the limbs, instead of the head which ought 
to subordinate and guide the whole. It is certainly 
not the function of a University to make its students 
artizans, or merchants, or manufacturers, or farmers, 
or shipowners ; the practical knowledge required by 
such may best be got from practical men in shops, 
and fields, and warerooms, and offices. Still, as sci- 
ence aids art and perfects it, so a College by teaching 
the sciences may fit its students, not, it may be, for 
the ordinary avocations of their employments, but for 
inventing new instruments, and finding improve- 
ments ; and, by its whole training, it lays up enjoy- 
ments denied to the uneducated. But, in order to 
accomplish even such ends as these, a College should 
never come down from its high position to be a mere 
instructor in the mechanical arts, or in shop and office 
work. Whatever branches it teaches, it should teach 
as sciences, and in a literary academic spirit, so as to 
impart to those members of those professions, who 
come within our precincts, a thoroughly scientific 
acquaintance with their subjects, so that they may 



ACADEMIC TEACHING IN EUROPE. 49 

improve the trades and increase their resources, while 
the}' cany with thern an elevation of tone which will 
keep the meanest work in which they require to en- 
gage from being felt to be a degradation. And then 
there are walks of life, such as the learned professions, 
those preparing for which require to know literature 
and science, and certainly to these the instruction 
given should be of a philosophic character, to fit them 
for entering in an intelligent manner, and with a rich 
furniture of fundamental and established principles, 
upon their professional studies. But the different 
branches admitted into the University being so taught, 
it may be allowable for the student to give a prefer- 
ence to those which may assist him in his professional 
pursuits. Thus, those who are intended for theology, 
might legitimately and properly show a partiality for 
the language of the New Testament, or for mental sci- 
ence which brings them into such intimate connection 
with the great truths of religion; and a medical stu- 
dent might draw lovingly towards chemistry or phy- 
siology ; while the lawyer might give less attention 
to other subjects, to undertake a more special study 
of political economy. All this is in entire harmony 
with the idea of a University, whose office it is to 
train the powers, but which may do so by any thing 
which is fitted to elevate and refine the mind. 

(4.) It should be the aim of a University to pro- 
mote literature and science, and by these and by its 
pupils to raise the whole community. The Rev. Mr. 
Pattison of Oxford would have his University look on 



50 ACADEMIC TEACHING IN EUROPE. 

the teaching vocation as a subordinate one, and devote 
its splendid revenues to make its Colleges houses for 
a "professional class of learned and scientific men;" 
"homes for the life study of the highest and most ab- 
struse parts of knowledge." This is carrying an idea, 
which has some truth in it, too far. I am not sure 
that the healthiest scholarship or the highest science 
would be promoted by the men who might be selected, 
no matter on what principle of candidature and elec- 
tion, to these offices of leisure and emolument, which 
would tend, I fear, to become places of ease and lazi- 
ness, possibly of obstruction to activity and indepen- 
dence of thought; or whether the men would best 
accomplish the end by being formed into an exclusive 
community. Of this I am sure, that the people of 
this country and of every country will insist on its 
Universities being primarily the educators of its more 
promising youths, destined for the higher walks of life. 
Still those who are placed in the offices of a University 
should aim at something more than being merely the 
teachers of a restricted body of young men. The 
youths who are under them and who look up to them 
will be greatly stimulated to study by the very cir- 
cumstance that their professor is a man of wide sym- 
pathies and connections with the literature or science 
of the country generally, or of other countries. It was 
thus that the Scottish professors of last century, such 
as Adam Smith, and Reid, and Stewart, and Black, and 
Munro, and Playfair, did so much to promote their 
favorite departments, in political economy and mental 



ACADEMIC TEACHING IX EUROPE. 51 

philosophy, and certain branches of physics. It was 
thus that Newton, Lucasian Professor of Mathematics 
at Cambridge, published the Principia, and made his 
University and his College famous for all time. It 
is thus that in our day in Germany every professor 
labors to bring forth every year or two the product 
of his studies in a work which may add to the perma- 
nent knowledge of mankind in some department, wide 
or narrow. The applications of science and the good 
uses of literature may be found elsewhere in our work- 
shops, and schools, and lighter literature, but where 
should we expect to find our highest scholarship and 
profoundest science but in our Colleges with their 
leisure, their independence, and the great stimulus 
which they furnish. 

And then the glory of every Alma Mater con- 
sists in her children, "as arrows in the hand of a 
mighty man ; " " happy is he, that hath his quiver 
full of them; they shall not be ashamed, but they 
shall speak with the enemies in the gate.'' It should 
the ambition of every College to send forth a body 
of educated men who, as ministers, as lawyers, as 
physicians, as private gentlemen, or in the public 
service, or as engaged in business which their charac- 
ter and refinements elevate, are spreading around them, 
consciously or unconsciously, a civilizing and humaniz- 
ing influence : making learning respected because re- 
spectable, and spreading a thirst for culture. Such a 
radiating power is especially needed in our day, when 
there is such devotedness to the practical and money- 



52 ACADEMIC TEACHING IN EUROPE. 

making pursuits — to what Sir W. Hamilton translat- 
ing a German phrase, calls the <" bread and butter 
sciences ; "and we need it to counteract the coarseness, 
the earthliness, the clayeyness, thus engendered, and to 
set before the country higher and more generous ends. 
God shows in all his works that he sets a value not 
only on bare utility but on beauty and ornament, — 
you see it in that lily so adorned, in that dome of 
heaven spangled with stars. I suppose that in this 
country your coal and iron, your earth and oil, are 
after all more valuable than your precious metals, but 
since God hath deposited them in your soil you would 
not part with your silver and your gold. So you 
should see that with all your other attainments, with 
your general intelligence and your eminence in the 
practical arts, you have also the highest learning and 
science. Our Colleges in relation to the lower edu- 
cation should rise like towers and steeples out of our 
towns and villages, like hills and mountains out of our 
plains. A College like Princeton should, as Athens 
and Alexandria were in ancient times, be an intellec- 
tual metropolis whence a refining influence goes down 
to the provinces. I magnify mine office : a professor 
should be like the central sun with planets circulating 
around it, and each of these a centre round which 
other bodies revolve ; so a professor by himself and 
by his pupils and their labors may reach in his influ- 
ence to the most distant hamlet in the country through 
which his students are scattered. 



ACADEMIC TEACHING IN EUROPE. 53 

II. WHAT SHOULD BE THE BRANCHES TAUGHT ? 

Should they be many or few? Should they be 
the old or new, or both ? These are the vague ques- 
tions put, and the answers have been as vague. Let 
us seek to clear the way. 

I am prepared to vindicate the high place which 
has hitherto been allotted to languages in all 
the famous Colleges of the Old World and the 
New; though I cannot defend the exclusive place 
which has been given them in some. Without enter- 
ing upon the psychological question whether the 
power of thinking by means of symbols be or be not 
an original faculty of the mind ; or the physiological 
one, whether its seat, as M. Broca thinks he has 
proven, be in the left hemisphere of the brain, spe- 
cially in the posterior part of the third frontal convo- 
lution of the left anterior lobe, I am prepared to 
maintain that it is a natural gift, early appearing and 
strong in youth. You see it in the young child ac- 
quiring its language so spontaneously, and delighting to 
ring its vocables the live-long day ; in the boy of nine 
or ten years of age, learning Latin — when he could 
not master a science — quite as quickly as the man of 
mature age. Now, in the systematic training of the 
mind, we should not set ourselves against, but rather 
fall in with this natural tendency and facility. Boys 
can acquire a language when they are not able to 
wrestle with any other severe study ; and why should 
they not be employed in what they are capable of 



54 ACADEMIC TEACHING IN EUROPE. 

doing? There are persons for ever telling us that 
children should be taught to attend to "things," 
rather than " words." But then words are u things," 
having an important place in our bodily organization 
and mental structure, in both of which the power of 
speech is one of the things that raise us above the 
brutes. And then it can be shown that it is mainly 
by language that we come to get a knowledge of 
things. This arises not merely from the circumstance 
that we get by far the greater part of our knowledge 
from our fellow-men through speech and writing, but 
because it is, in a great measure, by words that we 
are induced, nay compelled, to observe, to compare, 
to abstract, to analyze, to classify, to reason. How 
little can we know of things without language? How 
little do deaf mutes know of things till they are taught 
the use of signs ? I have known some of them con- 
siderably advanced in life who not only did not know 
that the soul was immortal, they did know that the 
body was mortal. Children obtain by far the larger 
part of their information from parents, brothers, sis- 
ters, nurses, teachers, companions, and fellow-men 
and women in general, and this comes by language. 
But this is, after all, the least part : it is in under- 
standing and using intelligently words and sentences 
that children are first taught to notice things and their 
properties, to discern their differences and perceive 
their resemblances. Nature presents us only with 
particulars, which, as Plato remarked long ago, are 
infinite, and therefore confusing, and the language 



ACADEMIC TEACHING IN EUROPE. 55 

formed by our forefathers, and inherited by us, puts 
them into intelligible groups for us. Nature shows us 
only concretes, that is, objects with their varied quali- 
ties, that is, with complexities beyond the penetration 
of children, and language makes them intelligible by 
separating the parts, and calling attention to common 
qualities. Nouns, verbs, adjectives, conjunctions, and 
other parts of speech in a cultivated tongue, introduce 
.us to things, as men have thought about them in the 
use of their faculties, and combined them for general 
and for special purposes ; primarily, no doubt, for 
their own use and advantage, but turning out to 
be a valuable inheritance to their children, who get 
access to things with the thought of ages superin- 
duced upon them — as it were, set in a frame-work for 
us, that we may study them more easily. In the 
phrases of a civilized tongue, w T e have a set of discri- 
minations and comparisons spontaneously fashioned 
by our ancestors, often more fresh and subtle, always 
more immediately and practically useful, than those 
of the most advanced science. Then a new language 
introduces us to new generalizations and new ab- 
stractions, made, it may be, by a people of a different 
genius and differently situated, and thus widens and 
varies our view of things, and saves us from being the 
slaves of the words of our own tongue, saves us, in 
fact, from putting w 7 ords for things, putting counters 
for money (as Hobbes says), which we should be apt 
to do, if we knew only one word for the thing. 
Charles V. uttered a deep truth, whether he under- 



56 ACADEMIC TEACHING IN EUROPE. 

stood it or no, when he said that a man was as many 
times a man as he acquired a new tongue. Then, in 
learning a language grammatically, whether our own 
or another, we have to learn or gather rules, and 
judiciously apply them, to see the rule in the example 
and collect the rule out of the example ; and in all 
this the more rudimentary intellectual powers, not 
only the memory, but the apprehension and quickness 
of perception and discernment are as quite effectually 
called forth and disciplined, as by any other study in 
which the youthful mind is capacitated to engage. 

I have been struggling to give expression in a few 
sentences to thoughts which it would require a whole 
lecture fully to unfold. Such considerations seem to 
me to prove that we should continue to give to lan- 
guage an important — I have not said an exclusive — 
place in the younger collegiate classes. Among lan- 
guages a choice must be made, and there are three 
which have such claims that every student should be 
instructed in them ; and there are others which have 
claims on those who have special aptitudes and desti- 
nations in life. There is the Latin, important in 
itself, and from the part which it has played. It has 
an educational value from the breadth, regularity and 
logical accuracy of its structure, giving us a fine 
specimen of grammar, from its clear expression, and 
from its stately methodical march — like that of a Ro- 
man army. It is of inestimable value from its litera- 
ture, second only to that of Greece in the old world, 
and to that of England and Germany in modern times; 



ACADEMIC TEACHING IN EUROPE. 57 

and a model still to be looked to by English and by 
Germans, if they would make progress as they have 
hitherto done. Then, besides its intrinsic worth, it 
has historical value as the mother of several other 
European languages, as the Italian, the French, the 
Spanish, and Portuguese, to all of which it is the best 
introduction, and, as one of the venerated grand- 
mothers of our own, ready to tell us of its descent, its 
lineage arui its history; let us not forget, as the 
transmitter of ancient and eastern learning to modern 
times and western countries ; and as the common lan- 
guage for ages in literature, philosophy, law and theol- 
ogy, and thus containing treasures to which every edu- 
cated man requires some time or other to have access. 
Then there is the Greek, the most subtle, delicate and 
expressive of all old languages, embodying the fresh 
thoughts of the most intellectual people of the ancient 
world, and containing a literature which is unsur- 
passed, perhaps not equalled, for the loveliness, purity 
and grace of its poetry, for the combined firmness and 
flexibility of its prose, as seen, for instance, in Plato, 
who can mount to the highest sublimities and go down 
to the lowest familiarities without falling — like the 
elephant's trunk, equally fitted to tear an oak or lift 
a straw. And it is never to be forgotten, that it is 
the language of the New Testament ; that it was the 
favorite language of the Reformers. Luther said, 
" If we do not keep up the tongues, we will not keep 
up the gospel ; " and so the stream is still to be en- 
couraged to flow on, if we would keep up the connec- 



58 ACADEMIC TEACHING IN EUROPE. 

tion between Christianity and its fountain. A nation 
studiously giving up its attention to these tongues 
would be virtually cut off from the past, and would 
be apt to become stagnant like a pool, into which no 
streams flow, and from which none issue, instead of a 
lake receiving pure waters from above, and giving them 
out below. These languages differ widely from ours, 
but just because they so do, they serve a good purpose, 
letting us into a different order and style of thought, 
less analytic, more synthetic, as it is commonly said, 
more concrete, as I express it ; that is, introducing us 
to things as they are, and in their natural connection. 
True, they are dead languages, but then, just because 
they are so, we can get a completed biography of 
them ; and, as we dissect them, they lie passive, like 
bodies under the knife of the anatomist. : As Hobbes 
expresses it, " the}^ have put off flesh and blood to put 
on immortality ; " they are dead, and yet they live ; 
live in the works which have been written in them 
with their diversity of knowledge, living specially in 
their literature, which is imperishable, which, for 
fitness of phraseology, brevity, clearness, directness, 
severity, are models for all ages, bringing us back to 
simplicity, when we should err by extravagance ; 
and to be specially studied by the rising generation 
in our time, when there is so much of looseness and 
inflation, stump oratory and sensationalism. It would 
be difficult to define it, but we all know what is 
meant by a classical taste; there are persons who 
seem to acquire its chaste color spontaneously, as the 



ACADEMIC TEACHING IN EUROPE. 59 

ancient Greeks and Romans must have done ; but, in 
fact, it has been mainly fostered by living and breath- 
ing in the atmosphere of ancient Greece and Rome; and 
our youths may acquire it most readily by travelling 
to the same region where the air is ever pure and 
fresh. I believe that our language and literature will 
run a great risk of hopelessly degenerating, if we are 
not ever restrained and corrected, while we are en- 
livened and refreshed, by looking to these faultless 
models. 

There are other foreign languages which have a 
claim on educated men, such as the French with its 
delicate conversational idiom, and the abstract clear- 
ness, amounting to transparency, of its prose ; and the 
German with its profound common sense, and its 
noble literature, worthy of being placed alongside 
that of ancient Greece, and excelling it in the revela- 
tion of the depths of human nature. I am inclined to 
the opinion that either of these might under certain 
restrictions have a place in the Course, provided 
always it be taught as Greek and Latin are, that 
is, as branches of learning, taught philologically, 
taught so as to illustrate character and history, and 
above all so as to open up to us, and lead us to ap- 
preciate, the literature of the countries. 

But prior to all these and posterior to them, 
above them all and below them all, is a tongue 
which has an imperative claim on us ; and that is, 
our own tongue, the language of the mother of us 
all ; Great Britain and her colonies, and the language 



60 ACADEMIC TEACHING IN EUROPE. 

of her eldest daughter, which should acknowledge 
her inferiority only in this, that she is the daughter 
and the other the mother. It has a claim on our love 
and esteem because it is our own tongue which we 
learned on our mother's knees, the tongue with which 
we are and ever must be most familiar; because 
it is in itself a noble language, with roots simple 
and concrete striking deep into home and heart ex- 
perience, and grafted on these from foreign stocks 
abstract terms for reflective and scientific use ; be- 
cause it has been enriched by the ideas and fancies, 
the comparisons and metaphors, of men profound in 
thought and fertile in imagination ; and yet more be- 
cause of its manly and massive, its rich and varied, 
literature, prose and poetic, revolving round themes 
which it never entered into the heart of Greek or Ro- 
man to conceive. If a Briton or an American can 
study only one language let it be the English. A Col- 
lege youth's education is incomplete, though he should 
know all other tongues, if he be ignorant of the genius 
and literature of his own. There should, I hold, be a 
special class for the English language and literature 
in every College of every English-speaking country. 
But in order that English have a place in a University 
it must fall in with the spirit of the place and con- 
form to its laws : it must be taught as a branch of 
learning, as a branch of science (wissenschaftlich); it 
must be traced up to the roots ; it must be studied in 
its formation, growth and historical development; and, 
above all. it must be taught so as to give a relish for 



ACADEMIC TEACHING IN EUROPE. 61 

its noblest works, and secure that it has a literature 
in the future not unworthy of the literature of the 
past. 

(2.) Mathematics should also constitute an essen- 
tial part of a College curriculum, and a portion should 
be obligatory on every student. Over the gates of 
every College should be written what is said to have 
been inscribed over the Academy in which Plato taught, 
"Let no one who is without geometry enter here." 
They serve ends which can not be effected by any 
other training. First, they introduce youths early 
and conveniently to self-evident truth. They show 
that every thing cannot be proven : that there is such 
a thing as a priori principles founded in the very na- 
ture of things, and perceived at once by intuitive rea- 
son, — it was to mathematics that the great German 
metaphysician primarily appealed in establishing the 
existence of necessary truth. This is a very impor- 
tant conviction to have fixed in the minds of 3^oung 
men, especially in these times, when an attempt is 
made to derive all certainty from experience, which 
must ever be limited, and can never — any more than 
a stream can rise above its fountain — establish a uni- 
versal, a necessary proposition. Having seen that 
there are a priori truths in mathematics the mind 
will be better prepared to admit that there are eternal 
and unchangeable principles lying at the basis of 
morality and religion, and guaranteeing to us the im- 
mutable character of the law and of the justice of God. 
Then mathematics exhibit to us more clearly than 



62 ACADEMIC TEACHING IN EUROPE. 

any other science the interdependence and connections 
of all truth, and the links by which premises and 
conclusion are tied in the reasoning process. More- 
over the study gives a concentration to the attention 
and a logical consecutiveness to the thoughts, and so 
saves from that tendency to wandering and dissipa- 
tion of mind, which is the ruin intellectually of 
thousands. " For if the wit be too dull they sharpen 
it, if too wandering they fix it, if too inherent in sense 
they abstract it" {Bacon). It furnishes the fittest dis- 
cipline to brace the mind for hard intellectual work, 
and has been found, in fact, an admirable training for 
those professions, such as law, in which force, tenacity 
and close application are required. These advantages 
are altogether independent of the value of the science 
as an instrument of deduction and a verification of 
discovery in so many departments of natural science ; 
a use which will be seen to admit of ever widening 
application as it comes to be determined that every 
department of physical nature is regulated by form 
and quantity, the qualities which mathematical science 
claims as its own rich possession. Not only so, but 
as it was found long ago that geometry rules beauty 
addressed to the ear, that is music, so I believe it 
will be ascertained, as science advances, that it reigns 
in the beauty of form and color addressed to the eye ; 
and so there is a grand truth in the old Platonic 
idea that God geometrizes : He geometrizes in all the 
order and all the 1 wellness we see in the universe. 
The withdrawal of a mathematical training from a Col- 



ACADEMIC TEACHING IN EUROPE. 63 

lege would be equivalent — to what God Las absolutely 
prevented his creatures from doing in the universe — to 
the withdrawal of force, and would leave the institu- 
tion enfeebled and without the power which binds the 
whole. 

But can there be a thorough education of the mind 
merely by classics and mathematics, as the famous 
Cambridge system supposes ? I hold that these may 
be taught and learned in the most perfect manner, 
and yet a large number of the noblest faculties of the 
mind left uncalled forth, and therefore uncultivated. 
Mixed with them there should be branches which re- 
quire students to be more than intelligent recipients, 
which demand of them that they put forth indepen- 
dent thought and observation. 

(3.) The physical sciences should have a place in 
a full-orbed system. These were not born when univer- 
sities were established, and resistance has been offered 
to their introduction on the part of the superstitious 
supporters of the old, especially the narrow partisans 
of classics. But they have established such claims on 
the attention, they have been so " frugiferous " as 
Bacon anticipated, that it is now certain, whoever may 
oppose, that they must in the future have a large place 
allowed them : and if uncompromising resistance is 
continued much longer the stream will so rise as to 
break down the dam that would oppose it, and sweep 
away the good which should be retained with the evil 
that should be abandoned. So it is expedient in every 



64 ACADEMIC TEACHING IN EUROPE. 

way to allow a legitimate outlet to these flowing, I will 
add fertilizing, waters. 

There are certain of our natural faculties which 
cannot be evoked and cultivated so effectively in any 
other way as being employed about the works which 
God has made. From an early period youth should 
be taught how to use and thereby educate the senses, 
how to observe and how to gather and treasure up 
facts. And physical science is an instrument not 
merely for educating the senses ; it calls forth all the 
faculties which discover relations. The facts fall un- 
der the senses, but the law which we are ever striving 
to reach, the law, which binds the facts, can be dis- 
covered and comprehended only by the higher intel- 
lectual powers, which divide and combine and infer. 
As it is out of the scattered and isolated parts that we 
have to collect the law, ~b lv h> ttoAAo^, so the study 
gives a discernment and a shrewdness to the mind, 
admirably preparing it for taking its part in the tan- 
gled affairs of life. It is one of its special advantages 
that it gives the bracing activity of the chase as well 
as the triumph of the capture : it not only yields 
results, it requires us to look at the processes by 
which these are reached ; it not only gives informa- 
tion, but, what is equally important, it teaches us to 
investigate ; it not only imparts knowledge, but pre- 
pares us to acquire more by showing us how to make 
an inquisition of nature ; it not only furnishes fruit, 
but brings us to the tree where the fruit grows and 
where we may continue plucking : thus even when 



ACADEMIC TEACHING IN EUROPE. 65 

taught by a skillful teacher it has many of the advan- 
tages of self-education. 

These sciences are now becoming very numerous 
and very varied. They may be divided in a va- 
riety of ways according to the end we have in view : 
but for our educational purposes they fall into two 
classes according to the capacities they incite and 
educate. One of these groups has been called the 
Classificatory by Dr. Whewell : it proceeds on the 
idea that this world is a miindus, is a k6o\los 3 that 
there is a heaven-appointed order in nature which 
man can discover, an arrangement with due ordi- 
nation and subordination in respect of such quali- 
ties as form, color, time, and quantity, which it 
should be our business to seize, and distribute the in- 
numerable plants and animals into kingdoms, and 
orders, and classes, and genera, and species, and varie- 
ties. The other group aims rather at^ finding internal 
properties and causes, and may pass under the general 
name of Physics, embracing such branches as chem- 
istry and natural philosophy, in which we seek to 
penetrate into the constitution of things and go back 
from what presents itself to what has produced 
it. Both groups require more than the receptive and 
reproductive faculties : the one requires us to discover 
resemblances and analogies, the other calls forth the 
powers of analysis and causality. The former de- 
pends more on observation proper, the latter proceeds 
more by experiment and tries by torturing nature, 
without paining her, to make her disclose her secret 



66 ACADEMIC TEACHING IN EUROPE. 

machinery. Both are inductive in their nature. 
Geology combines the two ; proceeding on classifica- 
tion so far as it looks to organic remains, but from 
effects now visible rising to causes working many 
ages ago, and showing that our earth has had a won- 
derful history. These sciences begin by the gathering 
of facts, and would thence rise to the law of the facts, 
hoping always in the end, when they have discovered 
the law, to descend by deduction to the foreknowl- 
edge and prediction of phenomena. They demand 
and exercise very varied mental powers and are thus 
profitable, altogether independent of their practical 
fruits, which are so palpably beneficent that they al- 
lure many to the study who would never be led by 
the mere love of knowledge. 

(4.) It will not be expected of one who has devoted 
so much attention to the Mental Sciences, that he 
should overlook them or the contiguous Social Sciences, 
in speaking of the subjects which should have a place in 
a College curriculum. I am prepared to show, in spite 
of the scoffs of some of the votaries of physical science, 
that there are true mental sciences, such as Psycho- 
logy, Logic, Ethics, and let me add Metaphysics, the 
science of first principles, and Asthetics, or what I call 
Kalology, the science of beauty and sublimity ; that 
they disclose to us laws of great scientific beauty and 
practical value • that the study of them is fitted at 
once to whet the acumen and widen the horizon of the 
mind ; and that it is of vast importance in the present 
day to save us from that, I will not say gross, but 



ACADEMIC TEACHING IN EUROPE. 67 

subtle materialism which is at the spring-tide in 
England, in France, and among certain classes in Ger- 
many. We have an immediate means of knowing 
mind just as we have a direct means of knowing mat- 
ter : we have an inward sense as well as outward 
senses, if we know matter by sight, touch, taste, smell 
and hearing, we know the varied operations of mind 
.in knowing and feeling by self consciousness. It is 
possible then to observe the facts of mind : in our own 
minds directly, and in other minds by the expression 
of their inward states in their words and acts ; and it 
is possible to analyze and classify the phenomena, and 
reach laws as settled as those of natural science. This 
has been done with more or less success by many, be- 
ginning with Aristotle, but has been accomplished with 
special success by the Scottish school, such as Reid, 
Stewart and Hamilton. 

Now, I hold that the pursuit after the fugitive facts 
of mind, the seizing of them under their various dis- 
guises, the discovery and the expression of the exact 
laws, such as those of the senses, association, mem- 
ory, imagination, comparison, reasoning, the tracing 
of them in our own mind and those of others, furnish 
exercises of subtle analysis and grasping synthesis, 
and lead us to distinguish the things that differ, and 
to perceive profound and remote analogies, in a way 
and to an extent which cannot be matched by any 
other study. So much for psychology : and then we 
have the old mental sciences, which have had a great 
degree of certainty since the days of Aristotle. Thus 



68 ACADEMIC TEACHING IN EUROPE. 

we have Logic unfolding the laws of thought, in ap- 
prehending, judging, and reasoning generally, espe- 
cially as employed in weighing evidence and reaching 
truth ; giving rules to which the ultimate appeal must 
be made in all doubtful matter, and supplying a police 
to detect fallacies. Then there are Ethics, unfolding 
the laws of our motive and moral nature, of the emo- 
tions, the conscience and the will, showing how man is 
swayed in motive and in action, bringing us face to face 
with an eternal law guarded by a holy Governor, and 
coming clown practically to the responsibilities and the 
daily experience of life. Scotland and Germany have 
got much elevation of thought from continuing to 
give these departments a high place in their Univer- 
sities ; though the latter has so far counteracted this 
by long running after a wild idealism, which, in these 
late years, has produced a reaction towards a ma- 
terialistic empiricism. It is a grand defect in the 
two great English Universities, that they have not 
given an avowed place to the inductive study of the 
mind. True, Cambridge has always had moral phil- 
osophy, but it has been jostled into a corner by other 
studies, especially mathematics. Oxford has given a 
place to formal logic and to philosophy generally, but 
the latter has come in by a side door, by the school 
of literce humaniores, where it appears in an examina- 
tion on the Republic of Plato or the Ethics of Aris- 
totle, and takes the form of the history of philosophy, 
an important branch, when philosophy itself, that is, 
the inductive science of the human mind, has pre- 



ACADEMIC TEACHING IN EUROPE. 69 

viously been taught, but without this, keeping as far 
from the human mind as classics or mathematics. I 
believe that the present evil tendencies in these two 
Universities, a sickly attachment to ritualism among 
the weakly devout, and a rush to Comtism and ma- 
terialism among another class, embracing a large num- 
ber of the aspiring tutors and students, have sprung 
very much from the neglect of the philosophy of con- 
sciousness so fitted to generate an independence of 
thinking and a comprehensiveness of vision. I am 
glad to find that the mental sciences, and these taught 
in a sound, that is, inductive manner, with a constant 
appeal to the facts of our nature, have a fair place in 
the American Colleges ; and within the sphere of my 
influence, it will be my endeavor to sustain and de- 
fend them. 

Closely allied to the purely mental sciences are 
some others, which consider mankind in their social 
relations, and are, therefore, called Social Sciences, 
such as political economy, jurisprudence, international 
law, and history, considered as a branch of science, 
and not a mere collection of narratives. I can speak 
only of one of these, and that is political economy, the 
science which treats of the accumulation and distribu- 
tion of national wealth. The inquiry calls forth some 
of the most useful powers of the mind, such as that 
of finding unity and law in complexities ; of arguing 
the true causes from mixed effects ; and of foreseeing 
consequences in very perplexing circumstances. It 
also furnishes a fine example of the joint inductive and 



70 ACADEMIC TEACHING IN EUROPE. 

deductive methods. It has a special importance in a 
nation like this, where the government is in the hands 
of so many, and where it is of such moment to create 
an intelligent public sentiment, and where wrong 
economical views would issue in such wide-spread mis- 
chief. The study is surely of very particular value 
to all who are to guide public opinion by the press. 
The periodical literature, which exercises such influ- 
ence in this country, will never be elevated till those 
who supply it have, as a rule, a College education in 
the principles of political science. 

Now I hold that, in a University, Studium Generate, 
there should be representatives at least of each of this 
fourfold division of subjects. And if our years were 
as many as those of the antediluvians, or as long as 
those of the planet Jupiter, I would be inclined to 
enjoin all of them on every student. But the father 
of medicine has told us f o (3iog ppaxvg n $k r^i fiaicprj, 
and an attempt to enforce all in a course of four years 
would, at best, secure a smattering of all, without a 
real knowledge of any, and your magister artiam 
would be a "jack of all trades and a master of none." 
I say, if you are to admit, as you must in justice as 
well as in expediency, the new branches without ex- 
cluding the old, then you must allow a choice. All 
should be in the University, open to all ; but all should 
not be compulsory on each. The question then arises, 
and I believe it to be the most practical and pressing 
of all, with whom should the selection lie ? With the 



ACADEMIC TEACHING IN EUROPE. 71 

University, that is, the governing body ? or with the 
students ? My answer is, with both. 

It should be so far ruled by the University, as to se- 
cure that all the branches be taught academically, taught 
scientifically, and that, in order to the Master's Degree, 
every student should go through an enlarged course — 
a course calling forth the various faculties, and em- 
bracing representatives of the four groups, languages, 
mathematics with applications, physical and mental 
science. I am prepared to maintain that a University 
should not give an unrestricted choice to one claiming 
the literary and scientific degree ; if this were done, 
the student would be tempted to take the easiest 
subject and the least profitable because so easy; or 
adhere to the one he had first learned; or confine 
himself to the one for which he had a taste ; whereas, 
the object of a higher education should be to call 
forth all the faculties, and widen the sphere of vision. 
In Germany, where each student chooses his own 
programme, I believe evils have arisen from the un- 
limited license ; though these are lessened by the cir- 
cumstance, that he has commonly a defined profes- 
sional examination before him. There is a great risk 
in these times of minds of great power and strong 
tastes, becoming very narrow in some respects, and 
altogether misshapen, by the exclusive culture of cer- 
tain faculties to the neglect of others. We see the 
fisher with broad chest and brawny arms, but with 
small thin limbs, because the rowing has expanded 
one part of the frame and allowed the other to shrink ; 



72 ACADEMIC TEACHING IN EUROPE. 

so we find great classicists, and great physicists, and 
great mathematicians, and great metaphysicians, 
weaker than others, when taken out of their own 
magic circle, in fact, silly and childish, and despising 
every other department of knowledge. If there are 
evils in sectarianism in religion, there are like evils 
in a scientific partisanship ; if it is wrong to divide 
the body of Christ, it is equally improper to divide 
the body of science, in which all the members are so 
intimately connected with each other, that no one has 
a right to say to its neighbor, I have no need of thee. 
It should be one of the aims of a University to cor- 
rect this one-sidedness of mind, which is infinitely 
more unhealthy than any mal-development of the 
body. It is to be counteracted by requiring every 
student to have such an acquaintance with each of 
the grand groups as to know the elements, to have an 
idea of its method, and to be able to appreciate its 
importance. 

But keeping within this limit prescribed by the 
final cause of a University, there may surely be a 
choice allowed the student. In these days, when the 
circle of knowledge is so widened, the days of uni- 
versal scholars is seen to be gone by, and if any one 
pretends to have mastered omne scibik, he must be a 
mere book-worm, if he is not a coxcomb, or a pedant 
dull as a dictionary. A selection, then, must be made, 
and this may surely be partly left to the student ; he 
may sometimes go wrong, but far more frequently he 
will be led aright by irrepressible, inborn instinct. 



ACADEMIC TEACHING IN EUROPE. 73 

As all have not the same intellectual stature, it is un- 
natural to force all to stretch on the same Procrustes' 
bed ; and, if you attempt it, you will only cripple the 
mental frame. All are not born with the same apti- 
tudes and tastes ; and the same reasons which induce 
us to cultivate our natural talents should lead us to 
encourage, foster, and develop special genius, when 
God has bestowed it. Any youth of ordinary capa- 
city may learn elementary mathematics, and will be 
profited by it ; but I defy you even, " with a pitch- 
fork," to make every one a great mathematician, or to 
force a taste for the study. Every educated man 
should know classics till he can read any ordinary 
work, and enjoy the literature of the great authors ; 
but I would not have him drilled thus the whole 
years of his course, provided he has shown meanwhile 
a decided taste for other studies. How often have we 
found the youth, sick of dead languages and abstract 
formulae, feeling an inexpressible sense of relief, and 
as if a new life were imparted to him, when he is 
allowed to turn to the contemplation of the beauties 
of nature, or the wonders of the human mind. 

I am inclined to think that, in the early years of 
College attendance, there should be an introduction to 
representatives of the principal branches of learning 
and knowledge. I am convinced that these might be 
so taught as to furnish a gratification, a pleasure, 
guadia severa, to the student, by the variety of food 
presented. I have heard it argued that the horse 
was not so soon wearied in old times, when he had to 



74 ACADEMIC TEACHING IN EUROPE. 

go up hill and down dale alternately, and had thus a 
change in the muscles exercised, than he now is, 
when the strain is on the same muscles from morning 
to night on our leveled roads. However this may 
be, it is certain that a student, when wearied of one 
subject, feels himself refreshed when allowed to turn 
to another requiring a different set of powers. With 
an introduction in the first two years or so to varied 
representative branches, I would allow considerable 
divergences, were it only to avoid a workhouse uni- 
formity of dress and exercise, in the third and fourth 
years ; nay, I would allow time for peculiar studies, 
and even miscellaneous reading, at least in vacation 
time. You see I would not have a choice made till 
there has been an introduction to all the groups ; for, 
until the student has entered a department, and gone 
a certain length, how can he know whether he has a 
taste for it or no ; how can he know whether he has 
an aptitude for geometry till he has gone over the 
books of Euclid. Supposing a boy to begin Latin at 
the age of nine or ten, I hold that by seventeen or 
eighteen, he might have a general acquaintance with, 
and an appreciative recognition of the value of, the 
various departments of useful knowledge ; and then, 
within the wide bounds prescribed by the College, I 
would set him free to follow the bent of his nature 
wherever it may carry him. 

The question is often discussed whether it is better 
to have a general knowledge of various subjects, or a 
thorough acquaintance with one? You see how I 



ACADEMIC TEACHING IN EUROPE. 75 

would decide the question. In these days, when all 
the forces are seen to be correlated, and all the sci- 
ences to be connected, I would have every educated 
man acquire a broad, general acquaintance with a 
number and a variety of branches, and I would have 
this followed up by a devoted study of a few or of 
one. To use a distinction which I met with the other 
day in reading James Melvill's Diary, let education 
first be " circumferential," then " centrical." This, I 
believe, is following the course of nature, which, as 
every physiologist knows, begins with the general, 
and then develops into the special. Thus far I would 
encourage TroXvfiadeia, that it may lead us to ficafiadeia. 
I would first allow the energies to disperse, as from 
the sun, and then I would collect them into a focus, 
as by a lens. In this way I would seek to combine 
width of view with concentrated energy. Let the 
student first be taken, as it were, to an eminence, 
whence he may behold the whole country, with its 
connected hills, vales, and streams lying below him, 
and then be encouraged to dive down into some special 
place, seen and selected from the height, that he may 
linger in it, and explore it minutely and thoroughly. 

III.— IN WHAT MODE SHOULD THE SUBJECTS BE TAUGHT? 

By professors or by tutors ? by lectures or dry text- 
books ? In Oxford, in Cambridge, and in Dublin, the 
teaching is chiefly by tutors giving instruction to 
pupils one by one, or in small companies. In Ger- 



76 ACADEMIC TEACHING IN EUROPE. 

many, in Scotland, and the Queen's Colleges, Ireland, 
the teaching is by lectures delivered by professors, 
accompanied in the two last by class examinations, 
more or less formal. In Scotland there were profes- 
sors, both last century and this, who did little more 
than deliver lectures, often very brilliant and stimu- 
lating, and fitted to rouse susceptible minds, which 
often felt satisfied but without being filled with any 
thing solid. There has been a reaction against this 
extreme, and now considerable attention is paid to 
examinations ; and tutors are employed to assist 
the professors, and in most cases a text-book is em- 
ployed. 

The question is keenly discussed, which of these 
methods is the preferable ? I hold, on the one hand, 
that lectures serve most important ends. True, they 
may not give more information than a text-book, but 
they bring the living lecturer into immediate contact 
with the living pupils. There is great advantage, also, 
in having the students in companies, that is, in classes, 
and these considerably large ones. This arises not 
so much from mere emulation, that calcar industries, 
of which the great Jesuit schools made so much use, 
as from the heads and hearts being made to beat in 
unison— as even two time-pieces going at different 
rates will come to do when placed on the same wall ; 
it arises from the living connection of the parts, the 
sympathy and reciprocity in a living organism, such 
as a class ought to be. In teaching, the first thing is 
to awaken the pupils : sometimes this can be done by 



ACADEMIC TEACHING IN EUROPE. 77 

persuasion — as Montaigne was awakened in the morn- 
ing, when a boy, by music ; more frequently it is by 
a rousing call, as by a trumpet ; most commonly it is 
by the stir of companions. When a class is roused 
into activity, the members get fully as much benefit 
from one another, each one drawing or pushing his 
neighbor, as from the teacher, whose highest business 
will be to keep up the unity and the life. The cold- 
est and hardest objects may be made to strike fire by 
collision. Davy melted two pieces of ice by rubbing 
them against each other ; and the coldest and most 
obstinate natures may get fire and diffuse heat by 
being kept by the impetus of a lively teacher in con- 
stant molecular motion. The Rev. Mr. Pattison, 
speaking of Oxford, says : " In respect of seventy 
per cent, of its students, it is idle, hopelessly and 
incorrigibly idle."* There is no such lamentable dis- 
proportion, as I can testify, in those who receive ben- 



* Another defect of the tutorial system is graphically described by 
Mr. Pattison : " Philosophy is taught not by professors who have given 
a life to the mastery of some one of the branches of moral or political 
science, but by young tutors. He is often too young to have had the 
time to study. He never will obtain the time, for his business as 
tutor is conceived to be to push his men through the portals of some 
examination which is awaiting them. Accordingly, he reads in his 
vacation, or in such moments of leisure as he can snatch, the last new 
book on the subject. He becomes, of course, an immediate convert to 
the theory of the latest speculator ; he retails the same in his lectures, 
recommending it, perhaps, by eloquence and learning all his own, and 
when he becomes examiner, he examines on it." This candid passage 
lets us into the secret of the tendency towards German idealism and 
rationalism, which appeared in Oxford and Cambridge in the last age, 
and the degradation towards Comtism and materialism in the present 
age. 



78 ACADEMIC TEACHING IN EUROPE. 

eiit in Scotland and in the Irish Colleges, and this arises 
very much from the stimulus given by class lectures. 
On the other hand, there is a risk that, in a large 
class, a great many, the cunning, the dull, and the 
idle, escape in the crowd; and the copious matter 
poured forth by the professor is apt to be like those 
gushing torrents of rain shower, which run off imme- 
diately into the rivers and the sea, without sinking 
into the soil to fertilize it. It is evident that a skill- 
ful tutor, taking up an individual pupil, can make him 
acquire a minute accuracy, so preferable to the vague- 
ness and looseness with which so many content them- 
selves in a promiscuous class. We are thus shut up to 
the conclusion, that in a perfect method, there should 
be a judicious combination of the two.* The lecture 
must be continued to give large general views, and 
communicate a stimulus, as by an electric current, to 
the whole class. But, then, there must be rigid ex- 
aminations, from week to week, almost from day to 
day, to make the pupils " chew and digest," as Bacon 
expresses it, the food; and that the teacher may 
know to impart instruction in the measure that they 
are able to receive it. With the lecture, which can only 
be heard once, and if lost on that one occasion, is lost 
forever, there should be text-books, on which the stu- 



* I may be allowed to state, that, iu my two regular classes of logic 
and metaphysics, in Queen's College, I devoted one half the time to the 
delivery of elaborate lectures, and the other half to examination on 
these lectures, and on text-books, and to the criticism of essays. But 
I had also an Honor Class for higher logic and the history of philoso- 
phy, attended by those who had a special taste for the study. 



ACADEMIC TEACHING IN EUROPE. 79 

dent may turn back once and again, as may suit his 
capacity and convenience. I hold that every professor 
should have not only a large general class, to which he 
gives an impetus by lecturing, he should have a small 
class of those who lag behind to be taught by an as- 
sistant, and also a select class taught by himself, and 
composed of the few who are to be made thoroughly 
masters of the subject, or engage in independent re- 
search. I am most anxious to see whether the American 
method, with its combined lectures and recitations, 
does or does not supply and unite these requisites. 



IV._WHAT IS THE PLACE AND THE VALUE OF 
EXAMINATIONS? 

I refer now not to class-examinations or recitations 
which ought to be weekly, almost daily, but to general 
College-examinations on courses gone over or on sub- 
jects prescribed. These occupy a very important place 
in European Universities. A " first " and a " double 
first " class in Oxford, a place as a " wrangler " in Cam- 
bridge, are obtained by examinations, and upon these 
the valuable money fellowships depend. The fellow- 
ships in Dublin, which are of great value, are gained di- 
rectly by competitive examinations. The honors and 
the scholarships of the Queen's University and Queen's 
Colleges are determined in the same manner. Of late 
years the Scottish Colleges have been copying from 
the English ones ; on this point, I believe greatly to 
their advantage. In Germany there are no ordinary 



80 ACADEMIC TEACHING IN EUROPE. 

Class or College examinations, but at the close, the 
students are examined by bureaus in order to their 
entrance on any office, ecclesiastical or civil. 

Some people think that in certain of these Colleges 
there is too much of official and grading examination, 
and that the aim of the teaching is not to improve the 
mind, or even to convey a mastery of the subject, but 
simply so to drill that the result may appear in the 
answers ; and the impression left is that subjects and 
studies are valued not for their own intrinsic value, 
but as they come out in the examinations. It is 
certain that the examinations may come so often as to 
interrupt the course of study or bring it to a prema- 
ture conclusion — in short the plant may be kept from 
growing by fumbling too often about its roots to see 
if it is making progress. Then there is the evil of 
cram, in which an immense mass of food is taken at 
once, without the possibility of digesting it, and with 
all the evil of a surfeit. I have been told by young 
men, who have made up a science in a month or two 
for an examination, that they have lost it as speedily 
as they gained it, and have retained little else than an 
aversion to the study. It is certain that the prepara- 
tion for an examination and a successful competition 
can never serve the purpose accomplished by a Col- 
lege residence : by well-cooked food being served up 
from day to clay; by sitting habitually under a 
teacher competent for his work, and interested in it; 
by constant intercourse and interchange of thought 
with fellow-students ; by recourse to well-furnished 



ACADEMIC TEACHING IN EUROPE. 81 

libraries and museums, and by the stimulus of College 
societies. The London University is now a mere 
examining body, giving degrees to all who can stand 
a trial on the subjects prescribed. I have no objection 
that there should be one such University to meet 
the case of those diligent youths who can not find 
it possible to attend a College course. But I 
should deplore to find the other Universities of the 
country reduced to the same level — when an attempt 
was made to turn the Queen's University into an ex- 
amining board we successfully resisted the attempt. 
We must beware of making learning appear in the 
view of youth with the fixed passive gaze of the 
Egyptian Sphinx ; we must seek to make it wear the 
life and the play of the Grecian Apollo. In a prop- 
erly regulated course of study there must be leisure 
for rest and refreshing, for occasional promiscuous 
reading, and for rumination on the past, and for look- 
ing into the future. The student character and 
solid scholarship are to be formed, as the crust of the 
earth has been, by continual deposits building up layer 
upon layer; and the competitive examinations are to 
come in at the close, like the upheaving forces of the 
earth, to consolidate what is scattered as sand, and to 
uplift it and expose it to the view. 

You see what is the view I take of examinations. 
I object to their being made a substitute -for College 
residence, College attendance and training, which are 
of more value than any competitive trials. They are 
the folding and sealing of the document, which, how- 



82 ACADEMIC TEACHING IN EUROPE. 

ever, in order to fulfil any purpose must first have 
been written out. But then they do serve a most 
important end when they come in to complete a col- 
legiate course, shorter or longer. They then wind 
up the previous studies ; they necessitate a revision of 
the whole ; they bring every route to a point, and thus 
show us the connections of the studies gone over sep- 
arately. It is a matter of fact that there is always 
more of accuracy of scholarship, and mastery of detail 
in those Colleges, in which there are careful revising 
examinations, than in those, in which there are merely 
loose lecturing and daily recitations. And there is no 
other way of determining fitness for graduation, for 
scholarships and for fellowships, than by some sort 
of competition, in which examinations must constitute 
the main element, always it may be with essays and 
original research. 



V. WHAT ENCOURAGEMENT SHOULD BE GIVEN TO 
COLLEGIATE SCHOLARSHIP. 

In many of the Colleges of Europe immense sums 
are expended every year in prizes, scholarships and 
fellowships. In Oxford there are eighty scholarships, 
of the average value of £65, open to competition every 
year on the part of undergraduate students ; and for 
those, who have taken the degree, there are three 
hundred fellowships, worth about £300 a year each ; 
the whole amounting to £90,000, and some twenty 
or thirty of these fall vacant annually. In the Queen's 



ACADEMIC TEACHING IN EUROPE. 83 

Colleges £1500 a year is set apart in each for scholar- 
ships ; and there are large money honors to be ob- 
tained by competition at the examinations of the 
Queen's University. The scholarships and fellow- 
ships, connected with the University of Edinburgh, 
are especially worthy of being looked to by the friends 
of higher education in America, inasmuch as they have 
all been supplied by private benevolence, and within 
the last few years. I will not specify those allocated 
to junior students, but it may be useful to refer to 
those reserved for graduates or advanced students. 
There is the Mackenzie Scholarship worth £120 a 
year, gained by eminence in classical and English lit- 
erature, and tenable for four years. There is a Greek 
Travelling Scholarship, tenable for one year, and worth 
£70. There are four Baxter Scholarships, each worth 
£60 a year, and tenable for not more than four years; 
one for the best answering in mathematics, the second for 
the best answering in mental philosophy, the third for 
the best answering in physics, and the fourth in natural 
history. The Drummond Scholarship is worth £100 
a year, and is tenable for three years ; it is devoted 
to mathematics. There are three Tyndal Bruce 
Scholarships, each worth £100 a year, and tenable for 
three years ; one for general scholarship, a second for 
philosophical and a third for Mathematical Scholarship. 
There is the Guthrie Fellowship devoted to classical 
literature, worth £100 a year, and tenable for four 
years ; and the Hamilton Fellowship, allocated to logic, 
metaphysics and moral philosophy, of the value of 



84 ACADEMIC TEACHING IN EUROPE. 

£100 a year, and continued for three years; and the 
Classical Fellowship with £100, and tenable for three 
years. There are scholarships in divinity and medi- 
cine, which I pass over — to refer only to the Swiney 
Lectureship in Geology, worth £144 ; and tenable for 
five years. Besides these endowments confined to 
Edinburgh, there are others open to the graduates of 
any Scottish University; thus there are three Ferguson 
Scholarships, of £80 each, devoted respectively to 
classics, mathematics and mental science ; and the 
Shaw Fellowship in mental philosophy, worth £160, 
and tenable for two years. It is acknowledged on all 
hands that an immense impulse has been given to 
learning by these munificent foundations. 

In such American Colleges as Princeton, the 
average answering at graduation, is quite equal, I be- 
lieve, to that of the best of the European Universities.* 
But I rather think that there are a select few in 
several British and German Universities, who go be- 
yond what has been attained on this side the At- 
lantic. And, I believe, that this has been effected 
very much by the encouragement given to higher 
scholarship on the part of the students. Is there no 
way by which you Americans, while retaining all 
your present excellencies, may acquire what others 

* I am surprised to find Mr. Pattison {Academical Organization, p 
150) saying, " In America scientific culture has never been introduced. 
It has no Universities, such as we understand by the term ; the insti- 
tutions so called being merely places for granting titular degrees." 
He refers in proof to the course of studies in Yale University — a 
course which seems to me to be a very good one. 



ACADEMIC TEACHING IN EUROPE. 85 

have gained ? This, I believe, could be accomplished 
by providing some sorb of higher Scholarships or 
Fellowships as a reward of diligence and success in 
the past ; and obliging those who accept them to con- 
tinue their studies after graduation under the super- 
intendence of the College. The grand hindrance to 
higher learning in the Colleges here is to be found in 
the circumstance that the best students, after getting 
their degree, rush at once into professional pursuits, 
and make no farther progress, if indeed they do not 
lose what they have so laboriously acquired. The 
friends of the American Colleges could not benefit them 
so effectually as by providing that those who have 
taste and talent for higher scholarship, should have an 
inducement to continue their studies after graduation 
as having a means of sustaining themselves while 
they do so. These distinguished alumni should be 
required to pursue special lines of study or to travel ; 
and might be encouraged to produce the results in 
brief courses of lectures, delivered under the sanction 
of the College, and sure to be appreciated by the 
students. 

There is another way in which the interests of edu- 
cation have been much promoted both in Prussia and 
Great Britain, and that is by Government patronage 
bestowed on those who succeed at public examinations. 
In Prussia, young men can enter the learned profes- 
sions of law, medicine and the church only through the 
Universities and an examination. Not only so, but in 
order to entrance on the civil service of the country, 



86 ACADEMIC TEACHING IN EUROPE. 

an attendance at a gymnasium or University, followed 
by a rigid examination, is required. In Great Britain, 
all young men entering the public service, military, 
medical, or civil, down to tidewaiters and office porters, 
must submit to a literary examination. In many, of- 
fices such as the Royal Engineers and the Medical 
and Civil Service of India are to be had in this way 
and in no other. Some of the most valuable public 
offices in the world are gained in this way, such as 
the civil offices of India, which begin with £400 or 
£500 a year, and speedily rise to £1000, or possibly 
£1500, open to all young men. I am far from saying 
that this mode of appointment to Government employ- 
ment is not liable to theoretical objections ; but practi- 
cally it is found to be vastly preferable to the old 
method, which proceeded by nepotism, or by political 
partisanship, in which the Member of Parliament was 
obliged to recommend the youth, who was pressed 
upon him by his supporters in his county or borough. 
There is, of course, always a risk of failure in the case 
of the appointment of untried young men ; but when 
it depends on the success at a severe competitive trial 
in the higher branches, there is a security that the 
youth must possess good abilities ; that he has a power 
of application and perseverance ; and that he has not 
spent his time in indolence or vice — which last capa- 
city or incapacity was sometimes reckoned as consti- 
tuting his aptitude for the situation — those, unfit for 
anything else, being often foisted into a government 
office, when their friends happened to have influence 



ACADEMIC TEACHING IN EUROPE. 87 

with the dominant party. It is surety worthy of con- 
sideration, whether the offices in this country, re- 
quiring to be filled by young men, might not w T ith ad- 
vantage to the community, and to the great encourage- 
ment of learning, be thrown open to public competition 
instead of being determined by political partisanship. 



VI. SHOULD THERE BE UNIVERSITY EXTENSION ? 

This is a question, which requires to be agitated in 
some parts of Europe. The German speaking nations, 
with their fifty-eight universities and nineteen thou- 
sand students, do not seem to stand in need of such 
extension ; nor does Scotland, with its four old efficient 
universities ; nor Ireland with its two universities, and 
its four state-endowed and its various denominational 
Colleges. But England certainly has much need of the 
establishment of new Colleges, especially in its great 
centres of wealth and population, such as London, and 
Manchester, and Bristol, and Newcastle. 

Every friend of education and of mankind will re- 
joice to see Colleges extending all over this country ; 
from the Atlantic to the Pacific, from Maine to New 
Mexico ; advancing with the population of the country, 
refining its energy, and purifying its wealth. But we 
have a right to ask that, while new Universities are 
encouraged, the old be not discouraged. I believe 
that the excessive multiplication of small and ill-sus- 
tained Colleges in a district may be an enormous evil. 
In these days of rapid locomotion it is of little moment 



88 ACADEMIC TEACHING IN EUROPE. 

to a student, whether he have to gotten or twenty miles 
to a College, one hundred miles or five hundred. I believe 
that there is always more of stimulus, more of success, 
more of life, less of conceit, less of narrowness, of sec- 
tarianism, of knottiness, in large classes and large Col- 
leges than in small ones. Care should certainly be 
taken that, in the excessive competition, the food do 
not become adulterated; that the new Colleges do not 
drag down the old till all sink to a Dead Sea level. 
We should rather strive that the old be bringing up 
the new to a higher standard ; and that we have a 
number of Colleges thoroughly equipped by able men, 
by extensive apparatus, and by chairs for teaching 
every high branch of literature and science. We must 
not yield to the temptation, to which we are exposed, 
of sending unripe fruit into the market : or, to vary 
the metaphor, of resting contented with lumber fabrics. 
In new and waste countries they must be satisfied, and 
we do not blame them, with the log cabin; but then 
they rise as speedily as possible to the frame house ; 
and as the country becomes older they would have 
the more solid brick and the stone ; and now not only 
your capitols, but not a few of your private dwellings, 
are of marble. There ought to be such an ascension 
in your Colleges as the country grows older and 
richer : in the far West they may start with little bet- 
ter than our High Schools ; but in the older East we 
must not rest satisfied till we have institutions to rival 
the grand old Universities of Europe, such as Oxford, 
and Cambridge, and Berlin, and Edinburgh. 



ACADEMIC TEACHING IX EUROPE. 89 

What makes Oxford and Cambridge have such an 
influence on those who live within their walls, and 
which is sensibly felt even by those who pay them 
only a passing visit? The great men who have been 
there, and who still seem to look down upon us ; the 
living men, not unworthy of them, and who are pointed 
out to us, as they walk through the courts ; the talk 
of the tripos and the first class, and the double first 
and the wranglerships ; the quiet life in the Colleges, 
and the active life in the examination halls, in the 
societies and the great University meetings ; the 
manuscripts, the old books, the museums, all these 
create an academic atmosphere, in which it is bracing 
to breathe, and is felt to be more stimulating than all 
the excellent teaching of the tutors. Will our nume- 
rous friends not join with the professors and students 
in striving to create such an atmosphere here in 
Princeton, where we have grand names in the past, 
and need only like men in the present : by accessions 
to our apparatus and our library, and encouragements 
to the students to go on to the higher learning ; and 
by the founding of new chairs of literature and 
science to make our College as adapted to these times 
as our forefathers made it suitable to their day ? 

For the handsome and considerate kindness shown 
by those who have so endeared themselves to me, as 
well as benefited this College, by endowing the presi- 
dential office, and furnishing me with a comfortable 
home, I here give public and hearty thanks. My 
personal comforts being provided for, I am free to 



90 ACADEMIC TEACHING IN EUROPE. 

look to other interests. Of late years, certain gen- 
erous benefactors have endowed chairs in the Col- 
lege, and now we have a princely merchant devot- 
ing a large sum to its extension generally, and a 
well-known friend of science aims at placing on 
our height, with its wide horizon, the finest obser- 
vatory in the world. They will be followed, I trust, 
by others. The friends of Princeton must come 
forward at this time to uphold her, and make her 
worthy of her ancient reputation, and enable her to 
advance with the times : one whom God has blessed, 
increasing the salaries of our hard-working and under- 
paid professors, who should be set free from drudgery 
and worldly anxieties to give a portion of their energy 
to the furtherance of learning and science ; a second, 
by providing further accommodation for our students, 
that we may receive and house comfortably all who 
apply; a third by erecting a gymnasium for the 
bracing of the bodily frame ;* a fourth, by enlarging our 
library or scientific apparatus ; a fifth, by founding a 
scholarship, or junior fellowship for the encourage- 
ment of letters and high merit among students ; and 
a sixth, by founding a new chair required by the pro- 
gress of knowledge : we have scope here for every 
man's tastes and predilections. 

Speaking of the desirableness of elevating the 
learning in our higher institutions, I have sometimes 
thought that, as Oxford University combines some 

* Immediately after the Inauguration, two gentlemen subscribed 
$10,000 each, for the erection of a gymnasium. 



ACADEMIC TEACHING IX EUROPE. 91 

twenty-two Colleges, and Cambridge eighteen, so there 
might in this country be a combination of Colleges in 
one University. Let every State have one University 
to unite all its Colleges, and appointing examiners 
and bestowing honors of considerable pecuniary value 
on more deserving students. Some such a combination 
as this, while it would promote a wholesome rivalry 
among the Colleges, would, at the same time, keep up 
the standard of erudition. Another benefit would 
arise : the examination of the candidates being con- 
ducted not by those who taught them, but by elected 
examiners, would give a high and catholic tone to the 
teaching in the Colleges. I throw out the idea that 
thinking men may ponder it. 

But returning to ourselves. New Jersey College has 
a great prestige, second, I believe, to no other in the 
United States. But we cannot live on our past repu- 
tation — any more than our frames can be sustained on 
the food which we have partaken days ago. In these 
times, when it is known that all things move, earth 
and sun, stars and constellations, we cannot stop or 
remain stationary, except at the risk of being thrown 
out of our sphere, without the power of returning to 
it. In this new country, we have to look to our chil- 
dren more than our fathers, and " instead of the 
fathers shall be the children." You will have seen 
from the whole train of these observations, that I aim 
at keeping up the academic standard at Princeton. I 
have not torn myself from my native land and friends 
to be the mere head of a Mechanics' Institute ; I would 



92 ACADEMIC TEACHING IN EUROPE. 

rather you should send me back to my old country 
at once than make me and your College submit to 
such humiliation, This College will repay the debt 
which it owes to the country not in a depreciated 
currency, but in the genuine coin, with the flying 
eagle upon it and the golden ring. Parents and guar- 
dians sending their sons to this venerable institution 
must have a security that they will receive as high 
an education as any College in this country — as any 
College in any country can furnish. 



VII.— WHAT PLACE SHOULD RELIGION HAVE IN OUR 

COLLEGES ? 

In Scotland the Established Church long claimed an 
authority over the Colleges, and over all their teaching, 
and provided a form of religion. I can testify that it 
was little more than a form, and this not always the 
form of sound words. For years past the control of the 
Church of Scotland over any thing but the theological 
professors has been taken away, and with it all that 
remained of the form has disappeared : and now the 
Scottish Colleges profess to give nothing more than 
secular instruction, men of piety always seeking to 
imbue their whole teaching with a religious spirit. 
The keen battle being at present fought in England 
is likely to terminate in the same issue. But good 
men concerned about the religion and morality of 
young men cannot allow things to continue in that 
state. How, then, is religion to be grafted on State 



ACADEMIC TEACHING IN EUROPE. 93 

Colleges open to all whatever their religious profes- 
sion ? I have thought much on this subject, and 
labored with some success to realize my idea in Bel- 
fast.'-' Let the State provide the secular instruction 
and the churches provide the religious training in the 
homes in which the students reside. 

But, passing from foreign topics, this College has 
had a religious character in time past, and it will be 
my endeavor to see that it has the same in time to 
come. Religion should burn in the hearts, and shine, 
though they wis it not, from the face of the teach- 
ers ; and it should have a living power iii our meet- 
ings for worship, and should sanctify the air of the 
rooms in which the students reside. And in regard 
to religious truth, there will be no uncertain sound 
uttered within these walls. What is proclaimed here 
will be the old truth which has been from the begin- 
ning : which was shown in shadow in the Old 
Testament ; which was exhibited fully in the New 
Testament as in a glass ; which has been retained by 
the one Catholic Church in the darkest ages; which 
was long buried, but rose again at the Reformation ; 



* The Methodist body has spent £24,000 in erecting a fine College 
in the immediate neighborhood of Queen's College, Belfast. The 
students take the ordinary academic branches in Queen's College, and 
receive sjDecially religious and theological instruction in their own 
College. The Irish Presbyterians have subscribed £3,000 for the erec- 
tion of students' chambers attached to their Theological College, and 
open to all students intended for the ministry, whether in the Queen's 
College or the Theological College. I am convinced that it is in some 
such way as this that the churches are to provide religious instruc- 
tion in connection with the State Colleges of Great Britain. 



94 ACADEMIC TEACHING IN EUROPE. 

which was maintained by the grand old theologians 
of Germany, Switzerland, England, and Scotland; and 
is being defended with great logical power in the 
famous Theological Seminary with which this College 
is so closely associated. But over this massive and 
clearly-defined old form of sound words, I would place 
no theological doctor, not Augustine, not Luther, not 
Calvin, not Edwards, but another and far fairer face 
lifted up that it may draw all eyes towards it — 
"Jesus at once the author and the finisher of our faith." 
A religion of a neutral tint has nothing in it to attract 
the eye or the heart of the young or the old. I be- 
lieve that the religion which can have any power in 
moving the minds and moulding the character of stu- 
dents or of others, must be the pure evangel of Jesus 
Christ. 

But you will expect of one descended from the old 
Covenanting stock, who fought so resolutely for the 
rights of conscience, and whose blood dyed the heather 
hills of Scotland ; from one who was brought up in a 
district where there are martyrs' tombs in every 
church-yard ; from one who was connected for so many 
years with the Irish system of national education, 
which allows no one to tamper with the religious con- 
victions of pupils, that he shall take care that every 
one here shall have full freedom of thought : that 
whatever be his religious creed or political party, be 
he from the North, or be he from the South, be he of a 
white or a dark color, he shall have free access to all 
the benefits which this college can bestow ; and that 



ACADEMIC TEACHING IN EUROPE. 95 

a minority, nay, even a single conscientious individual, 
shall be protected from the tyranny of the majority, 
and encouraged to pursue his studies without molesta- 
tion, provided always that not being interfered with 
himself, he does not interfere with others. 

You have called me to the highest office, so I esteem 
it, which your great country could place at my dis- 
posal. But if I know my own heart, I am not vain, I 
am not even proud, as I might be, of the distinction 
conferred upon me. I am rather awed at the thought 
of the responsibility lying upon me. I come here, 
I find, amid high expectations, and how am I ever 
to come up to them ? I get this College with a high 
reputation, and what if its lustre should diminish ? 
My name is this day added to the roll which be- 
gins with Dickenson and Aaron Burr, embraces 
Jonathan Edwards, Davies, Finley, Witherspoon, 
Smith, Green, Carnahan, who have left their im- 
press not only on this College, but on their country 
and times, and comes to one, who for long years 
felt so deep an interest in the welfare of the students, 
who was able to teach nearly every department in the 
institution over which he presided, and whom we will 
all delight to honor as he passes his remarning days 
in peace among us. Of a king in Israel it is said, that 
they buried him in the city, " but they brought him 
not into the sepulchres of the kings of Israel." I con- 
fess I should like, when my work is finished, to be 
buried among these kings in the realms of thought, 
that my dust may mingle with their dust, and my 



96 ACADEMIC TEACHING IN EUROPE. 

spirit mount to pure and eternal communion with them 
in heaven. I feel that the labor meanwhile will be 
congenial to me ; my whole past life as a student, as 
a minister, and as a professor, should prepare me for 
it. My tastes have ever led me towards intercourse 
with young men. I have the same estimate of youth 
that the Spartans had, when Antipater demanded of 
them fifty youths as hostages, they answered, they 
would rather give twice the number of grown men. I 
rejoice that my lot calls me to labor among young 
men. I wish to enter into their feelings, to sympa- 
thize with them in their difficulties — with their doubts 
in these days of criticism, to help them in their fights, 
and rejoice with them in their triumphs. And so I 
devote my life, any gifts which God has given me, 
my experience as a minister of religion in a great era 
in the history of Scotland, my experience as a pro- 
fessor in a young and living College, under God to 
you and your service. 



DR. M c COSH'S WORKS, 



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THE METHOD OF DIVINE GOVERNMENT, 
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